PLO calls for holding international peace conference

The Executive Committee of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) called on Thursday for holding an international peace conference to supervise real and serious Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

The PLO executive committee said in a statement sent to reporters that the Palestinians rejects the sideline Israeli attempts to hold diplomatic contacts with Arab countries and achieve coexistence.

"Israel on one hand is trying to establish ties with other Arab countries, and on the other is rejecting under inconvincible reasons to hold talks with the PLO to end its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza," said the PLO statement.

The PLO statement also called on Israel to start immediately implementing the road map plan for peace in the Middle East and implement the two-state solution's vision of U.S. president George W. Bush.

Talks between Israel and the Palestinians on final status issues, mainly Jerusalem, refugees and final borders had failed in the resort of Camp David in July 2000.

Since then the Palestinians and the Israelis haven't directly negotiated these issues, following seven years of violence between them in the Palestinian territories.

The PLO had accused Israel "for wasting time in order to create new facts on the ground and keep cutting the West Bank into narrower slices and cantons."

It also called on Israel to work together with the Palestinians to end the case of the abducted Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit and work on exchanging him with Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Source: Xinhua