Ramallah - The Palestinian Authority will not stop peace negotiations with Israel, despite the suffocating siege imposed on the Gaza Strip because of rocket fire from the salient, President Mahmoud Abbas said Tuesday. "The negotiations will continue, we should reach an agreement by the end of the year," he told a news conference in Ramallah.
Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert restarted peace talks late last year after the US-hosted Annapolis conference. Senior officials from both sides met last week to begin discussing the so- called core issues of the conflict, after President Bush said during his January 9-11 visit to the region that such negotiations should begin.
Israel reopened two of its border crossings with the Gaza Strip Tuesday morning to humanitarian aid and diesel fuel, after nearly four days of a total lock-down of the coastal salient.
Abbas told the news conference that the deliveries Tuesday were not enough and added that the Palestinian Authority would continue its efforts to get the siege lifted entirely.
Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak authorized the reopening of the crossings late Monday, but warned Israel would continue to apply "pressure" on the Gaza Strip to end daily rocket attacks from there at southern Israel.
Abbas criticized the rocket attacks, carried out by militants groups in the salient, as "irresponsible acts."
