Erekat: Palestine leadership rejects ‘deal of the century’

Secretary-General of the PLO Saeb Erekat said the Palestinian leadership “categorically” rejects the US proposed peace plan to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict dubbed the “deal of the century”, adding that the Palestinians will not accept anything less than an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders.

Erekat’s remarks came in response to a report by the Washington Post that the deal does not adopt the two-state solution as a basis for solving the conflict.

According to the US paper, the American peace plan includes proposals to improve the standard of living of Palestinians by injecting investments, but will not allow for the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel.

“What the US administration is doing is not a peace plan, but a plan to destroy peace, international law, international legitimacy and the terms of reference for achieving peace,” Erekat said, adding that “there will be no peace without the end of the Israeli occupation and the establishment of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital”.

However, Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister, Riyadh Al-Maliki, said this week that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is ready to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu without “any preconditions” if Moscow hosts the summit.

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