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Palestinian Leader Calls for Talks in "Exclusive" Russia TV Interview

Posted on: Friday, 28 October 2005, 15:00 CDT

Excerpt from report by Russia TV on 28 October

[Presenter] The Israeli army has begun a new military operation in the Gaza Strip.

[Passage omitted]

Our Middle East correspondent Sergey Pashkov met the head of the Palestinian Autonomy, Mahmud Abbas, who is counting on the assistance of international intermediaries, including Russia.

[Passage omitted]

Once again, out of control guerrillas have put the Palestinian leader, Mahmud Abbas, in a very difficult position. Terror is not a political means, he said in an exclusive interview with our programme.

We reached agreement with all the Palestinian groupings that they would lay down their arms and end the war. The Islamic Jihad terrorist act does not help anybody. It will harm Palestine because this is a terrorist act against Palestinians.

The Palestinian leader understands completely that the latest worsening of the situation will push into the background all the efforts by the Autonomy's leadership to bring life in the Gaza Strip back to normal after the departure of the Israelis.

We have so many problems that we want to address at the negotiating table with Israel, like the construction of an airport and port in Gaza, a safe road between the Strip and the West Bank, the Egyptian border. I would like to address these problems, and I could do so by meeting Ariel Sharon.

But terrorism and military action in retaliation make a meeting between the two leaders unrealistic. Sharon refuses to sit down with Abbas if the latter cannot stop the extremists. And in this situation, Abbas is counting on the assistance of international diplomacy, including from Russia. For it is Russia that Mahmud Abbas is linked to by such a large number of connections, including personal ones.

The late Yasir Arafat used to say that Russian snow is always warm. Everybody used to ask me why my first visit as president of Palestine was to Moscow, and I answered: because Moscow has a place in my heart.

But diplomatic intermediacy has little effect under combat conditions, which at present neither Israel nor the Palestinian guerrillas are planning to interrupt.

Source: BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union

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