Ramallah: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday dismissed the leak of
hundreds of secret files on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks as
nothing but a "boring soap opera."
Arriving back in the West Bank city of Ramallah from
Jordan, Abbas was greeted by hundreds of supporters at his
Muqata headquarters after the Al-Jazeera news channel began
publishing hundreds of documents exposing his government`s
negotiations with Israel.
"This is a boring soap opera," he told the crowd. "We
know how to respond to it and how to deal with it," he said.
"We`re not shocked by this nonsense."
The Palestinian Authority has been deeply embarrassed
by information made public in the leaks, including details on
the large amount of land in Arab east Jerusalem that
negotiators were willing to cede to Israel in a peace deal.
But Abbas defended the negotiations today, saying the
documents did not reveal anything inappropriate.
"We have nothing to hide and there isn`t a single
document there that we didn`t tell the Arab nations about, on
an individual and collective basis," he said.
"The Palestinian constants... have not changed and
will not change, and the first among these constants is
Jerusalem," he said.
Al-Jazeera is leaking more than 1,600 files on peace
talks with Israel going back more than 10 years.
The files show Palestinian negotiators were willing to
make unprecedented concessions on issues including Jerusalem
and the return of Palestinian refugees in order to achieve a
peace deal.
PTI
