The United States and Israel are holding secret negotiations to discuss borders of a Palestinian state on the condition that Israel may lease land from the Palestinians for up to 99 years, a regional newspaper reported on Friday.
The pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat quoted unnamed sources as saying that "there is a tendency to recognize a Palestinian state on the borders that existed before the 1967 war" on the condition that Palestinians agree to lease settlements in the occupied East Jerusalem to Israel for 40 to 99 years, DPA reported.
Palestinian sources confirmed the information that the US and Israel are discussing borders and settlements without informing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas about the details But a spokesman of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office declined to confirm or deny the report.
State Department sources in Washington told the paper that Israeli-US discussions are "part of the the close relations between the two countries."
Direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks resumed at the beginning of September, but quickly fell into limbo when Israel did not renew a 10-month construction freeze at its West Bank settlements.
Abbas has said the talks will not resume unless and until Israel resumes the freeze, something Netanyahu has so far declined to do.
On Thursday, Abbas said that if this talks option fails, then Palestinians would try get the US to accept the formation of an independent Palestinian state within the borders of 1967, prior to the Six-Day War where Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt.
If this failed, he said, then a third option was to try get a United Nations Security Council resolution on the matter.
Netanyahu responded by saying direct negotiations were the only way to achieve peace and calling on the international community to make this clear to the Palestinians.