If Sharon only wants Gaza pullout, he doesn't want peace: Abbas
AFP
Date: 07-27-05
DUBAI (AFP) - Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas warned in remarks that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would show he does not want peace if there were no more withdrawals after next month's Gaza Strip pullout.
"We know that he wants a (Palestinian) state with temporary borders, and maybe just a pullout from Gaza, but this would mean that he does not want peace," Abbas told the Dubai-based Al-Khaleej newspaper.
Israel has planned to uproot all soldiers and the 8,000 settlers living in the occupied Gaza Strip in mid-August and subsequently dismantle four isolated enclaves in the northern West Bank.
"We categorically refuse the idea that there will be something called 'the state of Gaza' and another called 'the West Bank state'," Abbas said.
"We fear that the Gaza Strip will be turned into a big jail, if it is not open enough to the outside world and the rest of the nation," he said.
Abbas said "there is something that we call a safe passage, and this is what we are talking about with the Israelis, and it should be implemented... so that the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are a single geographical entity.
"This is what the (Israeli-Palestinian) Oslo agreement stipulated, and we insist on it, and if it does not happen now we will continue to exert efforts so that it happens in the near future," he said.
"Real peace is the end of the occupation of all the Palestinian territories, and the settlement of all final-stage issues, including (the status) of Jerusalem and the (Palestinian) refugees," he said.
"If Sharon wants peace, then this is the road to peace, and if he does not want it, then it is his business, and that means he will bear the responsibility of the troubles in the entire region and around the world."
Sharon, who hopes the Gaza pullout will ease calls for a more comprehensive departure from the West Bank, has said there are no further withdrawals in the pipeline. One of his top advisors has also said that the disengagement plan is designed to put the wider peace process into the deep freeze.
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