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After The Obama-Abbas Meeting: A Palestinian Stuck between Washington and Tel Aviv

Thursday’s meeting between Palestinian Authority leader, Mahmoud Abbas, and President Obama focused on the conditions for a peace process with the goal of a two-state solution. Abbas restated his dedication to the obligations deriving from the principles of the US-UK-EU-Russia Quartet, along with his willingness to negotiate the permanent status issues of Jerusalem, refugees, borders, water, security and the release of all Palestinian prisoners, while President Obama underlined the significance of a freeze on Israeli settlements by warning Tel Aviv:

I have not put forward a specific timetable. But let me just point out, when I was campaigning for this office I said that one of the mistakes I would not make is to wait until the end of my first term, or the end of my second term, before we moved on this issue aggressively. And we’ve been true to that commitment.

The full transcript of the Abbas-Obama press conference follows the video:

OBAMA: Hello, everybody. Well, it is a great pleasure to welcome President Abbas to the Oval Office. We had — we just completed an extensive conversation, both privately as well as with our delegations, about how we can advance peace in the Middle East and how we can reaffirm some core principles that I think can result in Palestinians and Israelis living side by side in peace and security.

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Tags: Arab League Peace Initiative, Barack Obama, Benjamin Netanyahu, Egypt, Energy Policy, Hamas, Israel, Israelis, Jerusalem, Keith Dayton, King Abdullah of Jordan, Lebanon, Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian, Palestinian Authority, Quartet, Saudi Arabia, Syria, two-state solution, West Bank