Israel rejects Abbas conditions for talks

Middle East peace talks look set to collapse after Israel rejected Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's conditions for their continuation.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas. (AAP)

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has said he will extend faltering peace talks with Israel only if it agreed to conditions, including a settlement freeze - terms that were promptly rejected.

"He who makes such conditions does not want peace," a senior Israeli official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Abbas listed his demands during a meeting with Israeli journalists at his headquarters in the West Bank just a week before a nine-month target for a peace deal.

His comments came as US envoy Martin Indyk went into a new meeting with Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in a bid to save the US-sponsored talks from collapse.

Abbas said he would agree to an extension of negotiations beyond the April 29 deadline if Israel frees a group of prisoners as previously earmarked for release and discusses the borders of a future Palestinian state.

"There must be a total freeze of settlements," by Israel in the occupied West Bank including annexed east Jerusalem, Abbas said.

"The borders between Israel and the state of Palestine must also be defined within a month, two or three", if the talks are to be extended, he said.

The peace process was engulfed by crisis last month after Israel refused to free a fourth and final group of 26 veteran Arab prisoners which would have completed an agreement that brought the sides back to negotiations last July.

But the senior Israeli official told AFP that settlement building in Jerusalem would not be frozen and that Israel had never agreed to discuss the border issue separately from other core issues.

These include Palestinians refugees, the fate of Jerusalem, which both sides claim as a capital, security and mutual recognition.


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Source: AAP

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