Abbas to Bush: Find someone else other than me, if you want to appease Olmet

[ 02/05/2008 - 05:27 PM ]

AMMAN, (PIC)--

Palestinian sources in Amman said that President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, returned from his latest visit to the USA with great disappointment and hinted that he might not run for the next presidential elections.

Abbas has also reportedly told the US administration to look for someone else as long as they cannot pressure Israel to comply with the requirements of peace.

Sources close to Abbas said that he told President Bush as he bade him farewell that he will not be standing again for election "as long as this is your position [regarding the peace process]." He also informed Bush that he will not be standing again for election and that Bush needs to look for someone else to run the show.

The same sources said that Abbas was on his way from Amman to Ramallah and that he was very angry and disappointed at the negative results of his US visit.

The Qatari newspaper Al-Sharq reported that Abbas told Bush that he cannot ask him not to participate in the celebrations of the sixtieth anniversary of the creation of Israel but he would ask him for two things: the first is for President Bush to say in his speech at the Knesset that he supports a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with Jerusalem as its capital and the other is for Bush to pressure the Israeli occupation government to halt settlement expansion in the Palestinian lands occupied in 1967 especially Jerusalem.

The paper reported that Bush told Abbas that he cannot say at the Knesset that he supports a Palestinian state because that contradicts the guarantees he made to Sharon and to ask Israel to stop settlement expansion could mean the fall of Ehud Olmert. Upon hearing the reply Abbas told Bush that if he wants to keep Olmert at his own expense then he will not seek re-election at the end of this year,

Then Abbas asked push not to table a "middle of the road" proposal to the Palestinians and Israelis to solve their problems because the Palestinians would not accept such a proposal and Bush promised him not to make such a proposal, according to the paper.

Palestinian observers, however, fear that a secret agreement, similar to the ill-reputed Oslo accords 17 years ago, is in the offing and were expecting a declaration of principles that would be announced during Bush's visit.

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