Responsibility that the U.S. has to shoulder will be bigger if discussions between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert brought noresults, an aide to Abbas said on Thursday.
Abbas and Olmert will meet later on Thursday in Jerusalem on the expanding of the Israeli settlements which angered the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Abbas' political advisor Nemer Hamad told reporters in Ramallah.
If things failed, "the responsibility will be first shouldered to the U.S. and then the international community," Hamad warned.
At the U.S.-hosted peace conference in Annapolis, Israel and the PNA agreed to launch negotiations over final-status issues on Dec. 12.
Two meetings between the two sides' negotiators after the Annapolis conference failed to achieve progress due to differencesover West Bank settlement activities.
The Abbas-Olmert summit will be held later Thursday amid criticism from the Palestinian factions which consider the talks useless as long as Israel continues the settlement expansions and attacks in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
The Islamic Jihad movement has called on Abbas to stop the meetings with Olmert and to engage in internal Palestinian talks which "bring something good for the Palestinian people."
"The only one who takes advantage from such meetings will be the Zionist enemy and Olmert," said Khaled al-Batsh, an Islamic Jihad leader in Gaza.
Hamas movement has also slammed the summit, considering it of no value due to the continuation of the Israeli unilateral actions,mainly the settlement expansions.
The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) also said such meetings will not force Israel to stop building more settlements.
"The negotiations for negotiations are a destructive and hopeless process," the DFLP said in a statement.
Source: Xinhua
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