U.S. President Barack Obama's recent speeches have laid the basis for starting a serious peace process between the Palestinians and Israel, an official of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) said Monday, Xinhua reported.
Yasser Abed Rabbo of the PLO added that it is possible for the Palestinians to resume negotiations with Israel in line with Obama 's vision that the borders between Israel and the future Palestinian state should be the pre-1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps.
However, Abed Rabbo stressed that Israel must accept Obama's calls first.
The Palestinians saw Israel's responses to Obama as negative, according to Abed Rabbo. "Israel still denies the Palestinian people's rights."
Meanwhile, another PLO official renewed the Palestinian position that negotiations cannot resume before Israel stops the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and other areas that Israel occupied in 1967.
The official, Ahmed Majdalani, also said the Palestinian should continue their plans to seek a recognition of the Palestinian state from the United Nations in September.
The U.S.-brokered negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians stopped last year when Israel resumed the building in the West Bank. Israel and the United States rejected any UN vote on a Palestinian state without a negotiated agreement.