RAMALLAH, Thursday, October 03, 2019 (WAFA) – President Mahmoud Abbas said today that the date for holding general elections has seen significant delays despite the multiple attempts to hold them earlier.
Speaking at the onset of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee meeting in Ramallah, he said a set of issues will be discussed during the meeting, including his call for holding general elections as he had declared during the 74th meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York last week.
“We have concluded many meaningful activities and meetings at the UN with many world and Arab leaders, international political figures, and the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres,” the President said.
On the relationship with the US, he said nothing has changed and no meetings were held with US officials, “because we said that [the US] should say something about the two-state solution, East Jerusalem, and international legitimacy.”
On Israel’s withholding of the Palestinian tax revenues, the President that despite recent talks with the Israelis on finding a solution to this issue, the Palestinian leadership has rejected any potential solutions by the Israeli occupation that disregards the rights of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and those killed by Israeli forces.
“Our position on this issue is unswerving. We talked about it in the United Nations and we say it here and in front of the media that although we are suffering, we can never give up in any way the holiest of what we have: the martyrs, the wounded and the prisoners,” he told the meeting.
The President praised the principle position of several European countries towards the two-state solution and the “deal of the century”, including the President of France, the prime ministers of Belgium, the Netherlands and Greece, and the foreign ministers and Russia and Norway.
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