By Alaa Rimawi
JERUSALEM
Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni urged U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon to reject what she described as the "unilateral" moves of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to achieve statehood through the U.N.
“The only way to achieve and establish a Palestinian state goes through negotiations with Israel,” she was quoted as saying by Israeli daily The Jerusalem Post during a meeting with the U.N. chief late Monday in West Jerusalem.
“By having these kind of unilateral decisions in different parts of the world, [we] give Mahmoud Abbas the understanding that there is no need to negotiate the Palestinian state, and I believe that this is a mistake.”
Ban also held talks with Israeli opposition leader Yitzhak Herzog, during which the latter called for the resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
During the meeting, Herzog asserted the importance of a settlement with the Palestinians saying it serves the Israeli, Palestinian and regional interests.
Such settlement, he said, should be achieved through direct negotiations between the two sides.
Palestinian-Israeli peace talks came to halt in April after Israel failed to honor an earlier promise to release a group of Palestinian prisoners.
A Palestinian draft resolution, according to a recent statement by Abbas at the U.N. General Assembly, will seek to apply the "two-state solution," providing the Palestinians with an independent state within the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
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