Palestinian President Abbas UN, EU to draft new peace plan

Jerusalem, Jan 1 (ANI): Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has urged Middle East power brokers to draft a new peace plan for the region that could help revive failed U.S.-backed negotiations with Israel.

Malaysia's The Star newspaper quoted Abbas as saying that Palestinians "demand" that the Quartet comprising the US, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations "draft a peace plan" based on U.N. Security Council resolutions that call for establishing a Palestinian state on land Israel captured in a 1967 war.

Speaking on the anniversary of the foundation of Palestinians' mainstream Fatah movement, he reiterated a demand for Israel to halt settlement building, the issue over which negotiations launched anew in September foundered just several weeks later.

Western-backed Abbas said he expected Washington to do more to confront Israeli settlement building in the occupied West Bank, part of land where Palestinians want to establish their state.

"We do not see any action or measures taken to confront the Israeli persistence with regard to settlements," Abbas said.

Earlier this week, Palestinians had rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's proposal to move towards an interim peace deal rather than a final settlement with the intention to try and bypass such sticky conflict issues as the future of Jerusalem, settlements and Palestinian refugees. (ANI)