Azerbaijan, Baku, March 14 / Trend A. Taghiyeva /
At present Palestine can not sit at the negotiating table with Israel in terms of continuing settlement activity, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in an interview with Itar-Tass today.
"Palestine's only requirement for Israel is to stop the construction of settlements and we will continue negotiating," Abbas said.
He said that Palestine seeks to resolve the conflict on the basis of international legislative acts namely the 'Road Map', UN resolutions.
"If Israel's leadership understands and believes that we, they and all countries need peace, then I am sure we can reach a conflict settlement," the president said.
In January, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki told media at UN headquarters about the readiness of people to apply to the International Criminal Court with a lawsuit against Israel if it does not abandon its plans to build settlements around Jerusalem.
The international community is concerned about the construction of houses on the so called E-1 site. There is a danger that two Palestinian enclaves, East Jerusalem and the West Bank will be cut off from each other as a result of developing this area which would put an end to the idea of creating the whole Palestinian state from a territorial point of view.
Israel continues to ignore the international community's calls to stop the settlement activity. Moreover, Israel ceased all contacts with the UN following a Fact-Finding Commission on Israeli settlements established by the UN Human Rights Council.