Yasser Abed Rabbo
Yasser Abed RabboFlash 90

Senior PLO official, Yasser Abed Rabbo, said Sunday that the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership has still not decided to return to negotiations with Israel. The decision depends on the PA's receiving clarifications on certain matters that are still unresolved, he said, and some of these are “substantive.”

Speaking with Voice of Palestine radio, Abed Rabbo said that the United States negotiators have promised to give the PA negotiators answers to their questions in the meeting that is planned to take place in Washington at week's end, between the PA's Saeb Erekat and Israel's Tzipi Livni and Yitzhak Molcho.

Abed Rabbo was asked if the unanswered questions include the “source of authority” of the negotiations, the release of PA terror prisoners and U.S. assurances, and did not rule out that this was the case.

PA news agency WAFA reported that PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas spoke by telephone Sunday with Turkish president Abdullah Gol, and discussed U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's efforts to restart peace talks between Israel and the PA. He reportedly also spoke with British Foreign Minister William Hague on the same matter.