Abbas to U.S. envoy: International community must learn to live with Palestinian Authority coalition

[Doondoo]

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas delivered a defiant message to a senior U.S. envoy on Saturday, saying that the world would have to learn to live with a new coalition between his Fatah movement and the Islamic militant Hamas, an alliance which has raised concerns in Washington.

U.S. officials have told Abbas they would shun any Palestinian government that does not explicitly recognize Israel, according to Abbas aides. The platform of a Hamas-Fatah government agreed at a meeting in Mecca last week only contains a vague promise to respect previous peace deals with Israel, at best implying recognition.

Abbas told senior State Department official David Welch that the Mecca agreement was the only possible agreement and the world must deal with it, Abba aide Nabil Abu Rdeneh said, after the meeting in Ramallah with Welch.

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Palestinian negotiatior Saeb Erekat, however, said Welch reiterated Washington's insistence that the new coalition accept the conditions laid out by the so-called Quartet of peacemakers - the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union - that any Palestinian government must recognize Israel, renounce violence and honor previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements.

"We are going to judge this government according to its commitment to the Quartet conditions," Erekat quoted the American envoy saying.


http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/826965.html