RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, March 29 (UPI) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Thursday urged Israel to accept an Arab peace initiative and not to lose another opportunity for achieving peace.
Speaking at the closing session of a two-day Arab summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Abbas said the Palestinian government, which includes Hamas, was committed to all previous agreements and charters. He added the government renounces violence and counter-violence in all its forms "because we are the first victims" of violence.
"I affirm the sincerity of the Palestinian will in extending a hand of peace to the Israeli people and call on the (Israeli) people and leadership to share this dream and this resolve, so that we can achieve (peace) with the support of the Arab and Muslim worlds as well as the entire international community," Abbas said. "We should not lose more opportunities in this long and painful history."
The summit reactivated a Saudi-sponsored 2002 peace initiative that offered Arab normalization with Israel in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from the territories it captured in 1967 and the establishment of a Palestinian state there. Israel has rejected the initiative as it is.
Calling on the Israeli government to accept the initiative without changes, Abbas said the parties that refuse to see the positivism of the Palestinian and Arab position in this regard and seek to amend the initiative are running away from peace based on international legitimacy.
The Palestinian leader stressed that Palestinian-Israeli peace can be achieved if there is honest intention to move forward in the peace process, warning the Middle East remains threatened with more wars in the absence of a just solution that can be implemented.
