LOC12:09
09:09 GMT
BETHLEHEM, Dec 25 (KUNA) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas expressed his great happiness here Saturday over the visit paid by the Kuwaiti media delegation to Palestine.
Abbas hailed upon his reception of the media delegation in the presidential palace in Bethlehem this step which aims at getting acquainted with the Palestinian conditions and the suffering resulted from the continuance of the Israeli occupation.
He said, "we are happy because our brothers in Kuwait visit us for the second time, and we hope that such kind of visits on the part of Kuwait and the world to be repeated in order to know our suffering and how we live." He added, "I know that your concern are ours, and I know that you are keen on closely knowing the Palestinian conditions, and we hope for such visits to happen again and again because getting acquainted at close quarters is better than listening through the mass media." The visiting delegation presented a perfumed copy of the Ever-Glorious Qur'an to the president Abbas.
Further, the visiting delegation will meet president Abbas again next Sunday in Ramallah out of Abbas's willingness to make the delegation know more details on the Palestinian situation.
The delegation is led by Director of the Kuwait Journalists Association (KJA) President Adnan Al-Rashid and includes editor-in-chief of Al-Anbaa newspaper Yousuf Khalid Al-Marzouq, editor-in-chief of Kuwait Times Yousuf Saleh Alyan, Al-Bait Al-Mithali magazine's chief editor Eqbal Al-Ahmad and KJA Fatma Hussein.
The delegation also includes a number of journalists like Khalid Maarfi, Mubarak Al-Qenaei, Bader Al-Mashari and the media consultant Jehad Mahmoud Abduljalil and it is accompanied by representative of the Palestinian embassy in Oman Abdulhakim Al-Zoraiqi.
Abbas briefed members of the visiting Kuwaiti media delegation on the latest developments of the Palestinian cause, and described the current political situation as complex and difficult under the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that rejects negotiations.
The Palestinian president said that, "we want to tell the Israelis that peace is more important than the negotiations for the coming generations, and more important than the current government, but Netanyahu's government does not want peace." He added that, "Netanyahu's government wants to drag the Palestinians a new into the vicious cycle of violence, but we are not to react to them according to what they want, as the populer resistance manifested in the villages of Balein, Nalin and Nabi Saleh against the separation wall and settlement is what we currently follow and there are foreigners and Israelis took part in it side by side with the Palestinians." Abbas also made clear that the populer resistance reminds the world as a whole of the Palestinians' rejection to the separation wall, and that it should be demolished because it is uncivilizational, inhumane and unpolitical as it is constructed on a Palestinian land.
Further, the Palestinian president talked about the Palestinian stance that rejects the continuance of negotiations under the settlement construction, and the Israeli response that insists on going ahead with settlement construction along with negotiations, noting that this happens, "because they do not want negotiations." Then, he touched on the Palestinian demand which seeks to discuss first the issues of security and borders, namely demarcating the borders of the Palestinian state on the lands occupied in 1967 along with making slight reciprocal changes in value in what is called "land swaps", making clear that this is what the U.S. is talking about.
Regarding the issue of security, president Abbas said that the Palestinian stance is clear and rejects any Israeli existence on the territories of the Palestinian state along with accepting a third party which is "NATO".
He also pointed out that once the borders issue is finalized, Jerusalem will become within the borders of the Palestinian state, then the issues of water and refugees linger, saying that the former was already decided on by the international law, and the latter should be resolved according to the Arab peace initiative that provided for a just agreed-upon solution to the Palestinian cause.
Abbas said the world including the U.S. agrees on what the Palestinians say in addition a big percentage of the Israeli society.
He also referred to the international support lent to the Palestinians that ranged between upgrading the level of representation of the Palestinian diplomatic missions to recognizing the Palestinian state, according to the borders of 1967, by Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia, expressing his optimism on the continuance of this support.
Under the current Israeli intransigence, the Palestinian president made clear that took the lead in waging a peace offensive through holding meetings with the Jewish communities all over the world starting with South Africa, France, Brazil and Argentina, Canada and Chile as well as his meeting with American Israel Public Affairs Committee "AIPAC" in Washington, which is the first time for an Arab Palestinian to hold a meeting with such committee.
The Palestinian president added that he met with more than 120 Israeli figures from various parties as well as independents a few days ago in Ramallah and discussed with them various issues in order to influence them in order not to regard Netanyahu's government as the only source of their information and to get a first-hand knowledge of what happens on the ground.
He added that these meetings with the Israeli figures led to a tirade launched by the Israeli newspapers against Netanyahu's government.
Abbas also said that he called for a ministerial-level meeting of International Peace Quartet Committee in order to adopt the EU's statement that stressed the illegality of settlement policy and that Jerusalem's annexation is illegitimate.
He also made clear that Palestinian National Authority (PNA) tries to build the state institutions with the help and the support lent by the sisterly Arab countries with Kuwait at their forefront, in addition to other Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
He elaborated that these subventions also coincides with a support from the U.S. which recently started to directly subsidize the PNA budget as well as indirectly supporting Palestinian projects through various American institutions.
Abbas said that PNA receives subsidy from the Arab countries, Australia, Japan and Russia, making clear that the PNA budget in published on the Web and newspapers and that PNA received certificates from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank asserting its integrity and transparency.
He also pointed out that Palestinians will be capable, in case the occupation ends, of relying on themselves due to the religious tourism whether the Islamic or the Christian one in view of the 1.5 million tourists who come to Palestine every year.
Finally, he dwelt on the Palestinian domestic situation, noting the establishment of security, the rule of law and the recovery of economic, cultural and educational conditions as a prelude to the establishment of the independent Palestinian state. (end) nq.aff KUNA 251209 Dec 10NNNN