Palestinians want US guarantees before talks

Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas was hoping to secure a series of US guarantees before resuming peace talks with Israel, as he met with Washington's Middle East envoy.
George Mitchell returned to the region on Monday for the first time in months on a mission to salvage peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians a week after Washington admitted that direct negotiations were off the menu.
Mitchell is trying to secure Palestinian agreement to discuss the key issues of the conflict through indirect negotiations with the Israelis.
Ahead of the morning meeting, a senior Palestinian official said Abbas was hoping to get Washington's answer to a list of demands laid out in a letter handed to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week by chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat.
"Last week, Erakat delivered a letter to Hillary saying that they want US guarantees and answers before returning to any negotiations, direct or indirect," the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"We are now awaiting the answer to that letter."
The letter lays out two key requests on which the Palestinians are conditioning their return to any peace talks with Israel.
Firstly, it demands US guarantees that there would be "a complete halt to settlement in the West Bank and east Jerusalem."
It also calls on the United States to recognise a Palestinian state based on Israel's borders of before the 1967 Six-Day War in which the Jewish state seized the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.
If Washington refuses, the letter asks that the administration of President Barack Obama not take steps to prevent the Palestinians from seeking such recognition from the UN Security Council.
"If there was no agreement on these points and no recognition by the administration of a Palestinian state, then the US administration was requested not to block the Palestinians from going to the Security Council and the General Assembly," the source said.
"Abbas is waiting for US answers to his request, which he expects Mitchell will have during his meeting today in Ramallah."
The letter also asks for Washington to reaffirm its commitment to ending Israel's occupation of the territories seized in 1967 and the establishment of a two-state solution, with a Palestinian state within those borders.