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PLO refuses any change to Arab Peace Initiative

March 3, 2017 at 11:45 am

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (C), Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah (5th L) and Palestinian chief negotiator, Saab Erikat (5th R) meet with the executive board members of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Ramallah, West Bank on February 13 2017 ( Issam Rimawi /Anadolu Agency )

The secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s (PLO) Executive Committee, Saeb Erekat, said the PLO rejects any change to terms of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative.

“We are committed to the Arab Peace Initiative without any change,” Erekat said, demanding that Israel, as “the occupying power” in Palestine, completes its withdrawal from the Arab territories occupied in 1967 especially East Jerusalem.

Following this Israeli withdrawal “the Arab countries can establish relations with Israel,” Erekat said during a meeting with a number of politicians, parliamentarians and diplomats, including the Turkish ambassador to Palestine and a NATO delegation, among others.

Read: Abu Sitta: The PA is harmed by the revival of the PLO

Erekat stressed during the meetings that the PLO is committed to respecting international law and international legitimacy and the two-state solution. Erekat added that the continuation of the Israeli occupation, including building illegal Jewish settlements, ethnic cleansing, home demolitions and land confiscation, are tools used by the Israeli government to achieve its strategic objective to destroy the two-state solution and replace it with one state with two regimes.

Erekat called on the international community that have not yet formally recognised the State of Palestine with its capital in East Jerusalem to do so immediately, and to boycott Israeli products developed in illegal colonial settlements if the international community wants to preserve the two-state solution.