MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina defends the right of the Palestine people to have a State

President Abbas and President Cristina Kirchner

Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner defended the right of the Palestinian State to “have its own frontiers” in a lunch shared with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, at the Government House.

“We support the international and national essential requirement that is for the Palestine people to have their State, their borders and a possibility to live in Peace with Israeli people and the Israeli State, within its own borders,” she said.

Minutes before, Mahmoud Abbas told reporters “Peace is not compatible with colonization and settlements,” and begged for “the end of Israel's extension policies.”

The Palestinian leader arrived Sunday in Argentina straight from Brazil, where he met with his Brazilian counterpart Lula da Silva.

The Argentine head of state also claimed that “the situation in the Palestine territories should never again be an excuse for any fundamentalist in the world to commit horrible crimes as it has happened in our country.”

“The only possible way is the respect of international law and the United Nations Organization's rules,” she said.

CFK outlined the role of the United States as a mediator in the Middle-Eastern conflict, saying the country “has to make huge efforts in order to manage to have both parts retake the way of negotiations, it is its duty as world leading country.”

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, in reference to Shimon Peres' visit last week, said she was begging both Peres and Abbas to respect the roadmap for peace.

“It is necessary to return to this roadmap, to international law, in order to answer positively to the international request for a two-state solution, with both countries living in peace,” she said.

As a conclusion, CFK underlined “the commitment of Argentina and all Argentines” in “making all the efforts in order to manage to build this peace that both you and us, as world citizens, deserve”.

Later in the day in an exchange with reporters President Abbas said that Palestinians will not launch a new uprising against Israel despite their frustration at the deadlock in US-sponsored peace efforts,

Abbas made clear that Palestinians do not want to see a repeat of their 2000-2005 intifada, or revolt, which was spearheaded by gunmen and suicide bombers and met a crushing Israeli military response.

”God forbid that we should come to a new intifada. The Palestinian people are not thinking about launching a new intifada,“ he told reporters.

”The Palestinian people are only thinking about the road toward peace and negotiations and no other path. We will not go back to an intifada because we have suffered too much.“

Abbas said ”what we demand is in the road map,“ he said. “This is what [US President] Barack Obama said when he visited Cairo”. Abbas added that the US was not doing enough to pressure Israel on the settlement issue.

“The US can do more than what it is doing to renew negotiations. We cannot ignore the part that the US plays and the fact that it can influence Israel to return to the point where negotiations stopped”