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By Zhang Wen Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Monday denied offering "historic concessions" to Israel, as leaked documents had suggested, and he insisted that the Palestinian Authority (PA) had shared every development in peace processes with the Arab world. "We say very clearly, we do not have secrets," Abbas, who is currently in Egypt for talks, was quoted by Reuters as saying. "I don't know where Al- Jazeera got these secret things from, and there is nothing hidden from the Arab brothers," he added. Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat has also dismissed the related reports as "full of distortions," according to AFP. Doha-based Al-Jazeera television, starting this past Sunday publishing more than 1,600 documents encompassing the most recent decade of nego-tiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority. According to the papers, the Palestinians offered to let Israel keep a raft of Jewish settlement neighborhoods in annexed east Jerusalem, as well as the Old City's Jewish Quarter and part of the Armenian Quarter, much more than it has publicly offered. However, Israel rejected the offer, saying it did not meet its demands, the papers suggested. Guy Kivetz, a political and press officer at the Israeli embassy in Beijing, told the Global Times that the Israeli side had noticed the publishing of the papers, but further study was needed before he could comment on them. Given the nature of conflict points between Palestine and Israel, Li Shaoxian, vice president of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times that it is hard to believe Palestine would be willing to make such concessions. However, he also told the Global Times, "The line the Palestine Authority draws on the peace talks may vary in public and in private. Palestinians probably will not publicly admit reorganization of Israeli settlements in Jerusalem, but a certain compromise may occur in private negotiations, as the leaked documents show." Those papers can therefore be taken by Hamas leadership, as well as Abbas' rivals, as additional proof of the "defeatism" of the PA, Israel's Haaretz pa-per said Monday. |
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