The Palestinian Authority will not return to peace talks with Israel unless there is a freeze on settlement building that includes East Jerusalem, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday.
Abbas said the Palestinians and Israel had received no official US request for a return to the talks which began in September but stopped three weeks later after Israel refused to extend a freeze on new settlements in the West Bank.
Asked if the Palestinian Authority would agree to resume the talks if a new settlement freeze did not include East Jerusalem, he said: "if there is no complete halt to settlements in all of the Palestinian territories including Jerusalem, we will not accept".
Abbas was speaking to reporters after meeting President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, which in 1979 became the first Arab state to make peace with Israel. Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman were also present. Abbas also said it was unacceptable to link the stalled negotiations with a US offer of additional military aid to its Israeli ally.
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