Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will send a stern message to Israel with key demands to save the stalled peace process between the two sides, Palestinian sources said Sunday, Xinhua reported.
The Palestinian leadership ratified the message which will be sent officially within 48 hours, the sources said. A week ago, Abbas told the Arab League ministerial committee about the message, saying that future Palestinian moves depend on the nature of the Israeli responses to the message.
The first demand will be for an Israeli commitment to recognize the 1967 borders as the baseline and reference for any future round of peace talks. "It will emphasize that Israel's rejection to this demand means a practical ending of the two-state solution, " the sources said.
The letter will also demand Israel stop all kinds of Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the part of the city that the Palestinians want as a future capital.
The Palestinian leadership also wants Israel to free 139 prisoners who were arrested before Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signed the interim peace accords in Oslo in 1993.
The fourth and final demand is that Israel cancel all security measures it has taken in the West Bank when the second Palestinian uprising broke out in 2000. The sources say that the measures affected the Palestinian security and political mandate in the West Bank, turning the Palestinian National Authority (PNA)'s role similar to that of a municipality.
The peace talks stopped in 2010, when Israel resumed settlement building in the West Bank.
If Israel responded negatively, the first Palestinian move will be directed to the United Nations, where the Palestinians will work on upgrading their status to a non-member observer, sources said earlier.
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