The Palestinian president, who is under US pressure to resume direct talks with Israel, said that doing so under current circumstances would be pointless. The remarks by Mahmoud Abbas underline his determination not to return to the table unless Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commits to an internationally mandated settlement freeze and agrees to pick up talks where they left off under the Israeli leader's predecessor in Dec. 2008. Netanyahu hasn't agreed to either demand, and has so far curbed but not frozen settlement activity. He insists negotiations should be held without any preconditions. President Barack Obama called Abbas last week, following the US president's meeting with Netanyahu. The White House said Obama and Abbas talked about ways to revive direct talks soon. “We have presented our vision and thoughts and said that if progress is made, we will move to direct talks, but that if no progress is made, it (direct negotiations) will be futile,” Abbas said in a speech late Saturday. “If they (the Israelis) say ‘come and let's start negotiations from zero,' that is futile and pointless,” Abbas added. The Palestinians say they that after 17 years of intermittent talks, they don't want to start all over again, especially with an Israeli leader who has retreated from positions presented by his predecessors. In the absence of direct talks, a US envoy has been shuttling between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders in recent weeks. Abbas' aide Yasser Abed Rabbo told Palestinian radio Sunday that the Palestinians don't want to enter open-ended negotiations with Israel. “There must be a timetable, a framework for these negotiations,” he said. “We will not enter new negotiations that could take more than 10 years.” Netanyahu said in New York last week that if Abbas agreed to sit down with him in direct talks, then a peace agreement could be hammered out within a year.
