Clinton meets Abbas in Abu Dhabi

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, rejecting U.S. calls to renew peace talks with Israel, says there must be a total West Bank settlement freeze first.

At a joint news conference Saturday following his Abu Dhabi meeting with U. S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Abbas said his demand that Israel impose a total freeze is not a precondition for peace talks, but an "obligation," the Web site Gulfnews.com quoted him as saying.

Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat described the talks between the two as "frank and difficult," the Web site said. "President Abbas insisted that whoever wants peace talks to resume, must first make Israel meet its obligations," Erekat was quoted as saying.

Abbas asked the U.S. administration to pressure Israel to impose a settlement freeze and reiterated his demand that east Jerusalem must be the capital of a future Palestinian state, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported Saturday.

Clinton was to arrive in Israel Saturday night and meet with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Israeli media reported.

Clinton is then to fly to Morocco for meetings with Arab leaders, the Washington publication Politico reported.

The Israeli Web site Ynetnews.com reported sources close to Abbas as saying the peace process may be restarted even without a hard freeze on new Jewish settlements -- a scenario that poses "a difficult dilemma" for Palestinians.

"At the end of the current round, the renewal of negotiations will probably be announced," an unnamed Palestinian source told Ynetnews. "We are witnessing pressure from the Americans and a number of Arab elements to stop conditioning the renewal of negotiations on the halting of settlements."