Abbas: May renew bid for UN recognition

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he may renew efforts for U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state if Israel doesn't accept his peace-talk conditions. The Palestinian president told Israeli officials at a meeting in his Ramallah office Sunday he plans to dispatch a letter to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu outlining his conditions to break the stalemate in the peace process, The Jerusalem Post reported Monday. A Palestinian delegation headed by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is expected to meet Netanyahu next week in Jerusalem to hand him the letter. If Israel fails to respond to Abbas' demands, he will consider resuming his bid for statehood at the United Nations, he said. Abbas' demands include a halt to all settlement activities in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel and accepting the June 4, 1967, lines (Israel's borders before the Six Day War that led to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza) as the borders of a future Palestinian state, the newspaper said. Amos Gilad, head of the Israeli Defense Ministry's Diplomatic-Security Bureau, told Israel Radio Sunday a peace agreement can only be reached through negotiations.