RAMALLAH (Agencies) – Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas urged Washington on Sunday to declare an “endgame” to resolve the decades-old Middle East conflict if Israel does not agree to halt settlement growth.

Abbas said in a statement carried by the official Wafa wire service that Arab states and the Palestinians would present a unified position to the United States offering two options, AFP reported.
“Either Israel adheres to a complete halt to settlements and the guidelines (of negotiations) or America must come and say this is the endgame with respect to determining borders and the refugee issue and other final status issues.”
Abbas has resisted months of U.S. pressure to relaunch so-called peace talks suspended during last year's devastating Gaza war, saying Israel must first freeze all settlement activity in the occupied West Bank, including annexed East Beit-ul-Moqaddas (Jerusalem).
In November, Israel's hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu enacted a 10-month moratorium on new building starts in the West Bank but excluded east Jerusalem, public buildings and projects already under way.
The United States hailed the move as “unprecedented” but the Palestinians have slammed it as insufficient.
Last week, Abbas appeared to give some ground by demanding a halt to settlement growth for a “fixed period,” but in Sunday's statement he remained adamant about a complete halt.
“We cannot return to the negotiations if Israel stays with this position,” Abbas said, referring to the limited moratorium.
U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell is expected to return to the region this week to try again to convince both sides to restart negotiations.
Israel's Maariv newspaper reported earlier this month that Washington was pushing a plan to restart peace talks that foresees reaching a final deal in two years and agreeing on permanent borders in nine months.
Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported on Sunday that the request by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to the United Nations Human Rights Council last year to postpone the vote on the Goldstone report followed a particularly tense meeting with the head of the Shin Bet security service. At the October meeting in Ramallah, Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin told Abbas that if he did not ask for a deferral of the vote on the critical report on last year's military operation, Israel would turn the West Bank into a second Gaza.
Photo:
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas attends a Fatah council meeting on January 15, 2010 in the West Bank city of Ramallah. (Getty Images)
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