RAMALLAH, Saturday, April 13, 2019 (WAFA) – President Mahmoud Abbas said on Saturday evening that the Palestinian issue is going through difficult circumstances, and that everyone is called upon to make every possible effort to serve the country.
Speaking during the first meeting at the presidential headquarters in Ramallah with the newly formed 18th government shortly after it was sworn-in, he said, “We have many difficult and complicated tasks, first of which is the “deal of the century”, of which I think nothing is left undeclared.”
He said the Palestinians have rejected this deal from the beginning, “because it excluded Jerusalem from Palestine, and therefore we do not want the rest. There is no state without Jerusalem, no state in Gaza, no state without Gaza.”
Meanwhile, the President said he does not think it is useful to talk with US President Donald Trump about any solution or issue, after he moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognized Jerusalem as capital of Israel.
On Israel’s withholding of the Palestinian tax revenues, he said “the Israelis told us that after the Israeli elections that they can talk about this issue. We are waiting, because the Israeli elections are over, and we are ready to talk.”
The president emphasized the Palestinian national constants and stressed that all Israeli settlements built on Palestinian land are illegal. “We have the right, will remain steadfast and will resist [the occupation] by all legitimate means to establish our independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital on the 1967 borders.”
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