RAMALLAH: Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas told Arab leaders over the weekend that Israel has in effect scrapped the landmark 1993 Oslo autonomy accords, an aide said on Monday.
"Abbas affirmed to the Arabs that Israel has effectively cancelled the Oslo agreement and the other agreements it has signed with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)," chief negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP.
He went on to accuse Israel of having stripped the Palestinian Authority of much of its limited powers in the occupied territories and of "intruding on a daily basis" into areas governed by the Palestinians, Erakat said.
"If Israel does not respect agreements or adhere to implementing them then how can the PLO and the Palestinian Authority adhere to them?" he asked.
The 1993 Oslo accords formally launched the peace process based on autonomy and led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority, which was to govern parts of the occupied West Bank and Gaza until a final agreement.
But after nearly two decades of sputtering talks Israel and the Palestinians remain bitterly divided on core issues and Abbas has refused to negotiate without a complete freeze of Jewish settlement building on Palestinian lands.
Erakat said that Abbas, at the Arab summit in the Libyan city of Sirte, also spelled out several alternatives to direct negotiations should Israel continue to build in the occupied territories.
One option would have the Palestinians demand US recognition of a state in the Palestinian territories occupied in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war: the West Bank, Gaza Strip and annexed Arab east Jerusalem.
Abbas said other options include demanding full membership from the UN General Assembly and the Security Council or requesting an international mandate to govern the Palestinian territories, Erakat said.
"Abbas did not say he would resign or dissolve the Palestinian Authority," Erakat said, referring to far more drastic steps to which the Palestinians have alluded in the past.
"But he said that since Israel has cancelled the Oslo accords and the other agreements and stripped the power of the Palestinian Authority over Palestinian lands, why should it remain in place?"
The latest round of peace talks was relaunched on September 2 in Washington but ground to a halt when a 10-month partial moratorium on Israeli settlements expired on September 26.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to extend the restrictions, a move opposed by much of his right-wing-led coalition, but he has encouraged the Palestinians to stick to the talks.
Meanwhile, the option of the UN Security Council creating a Palestinian state cannot be ruled out, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said in an interview published Sunday.
But he got short shrift from Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman during a meeting Sunday.
Kouchner told the Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam that France preferred a two-state solution to be negotiated with Israel, but added that appealing to the Security Council to resolve the conflict remained a possibility.
"We want to be able to soon welcome the state of Palestine to the United Nations. This is the hope and the desire of the international community, and the sooner that can happen the better," he said.
"The international community cannot be satisfied with a prolonged deadlock. I therefore believe that one cannot rule out in principle the Security Council option," he said.
"But the establishment of the Palestinian state must come as a result of the peace process and be the fruit of bilateral negotiations."
Kouchner met with Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Sunday at the start of a two-day visit to the region with Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos.
He also met his outspoken Israeli counterpart Lieberman, whose reaction was characteristically blunt.
"Before coming here to tell us how to solve our conflicts, I would expect you could have at least solved all the problems within Europe," he said in comments published in the Israeli media.
"In 1938 the European nations decided to appease Hitler instead of standing by a loyal ally, Czechoslovakia, and sacrificed her without achieving anything," he added.
"We don’t intend to be the Czechoslovakia of 2010 and we will defend the fundamental interests of Israel."
Kouchner told reporters the European Union, the largest donor to the Palestinian Authority, should play a more prominent role in the peace process.
And later, he stressed the "urgency" that the EU felt for the creation of a Palestinian state through the current peace talks.
"This is a moment that we do not want to miss," he said ahead of a meeting with Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak.
Following the meeting with the Israeli leader, he was more upbeat.
"Despite the differences of analysis, what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told us was encouraging," said Kouchner.
The prime minister was still trying to find a way of reaching an agreement that would satisfy both the Palestinian and Israeli people, he said.
"He told us that the efforts continue to find a consensus, that it will perhaps be longer than one might think," Kouchner added.
