Ramallah - A senior Palestinian negotiator said Wednesday the Palestinians should unilaterally declare independence in the West Bank and Gaza, just as the former Serbian province of Kosovo did on Sunday, if peace talks with Israel go nowhere. President Mahmoud Abbas himself, however issued a more cautious reaction, and other top Palestinian officials were quick to distance themselves from the idea.
Speaking in the morning to Voice of Palestine Radio, Yasser Abed Rabbo,one of Abbas' senior aides, said that if the lack of progress in peace talks with Israel continues, the Palestinians will have no option but to follow the Kosovo example.
A terse statement issued later from Abbas's office did not explicitly rule out the idea, but noted that Israelis and Palestinians "are moving in negotiations to reach a permanent agreement which will includesettlement of all final status issues including Jerusalem."
But, the statement continued, "if we cannot achieve that, and we reach a deadlock, we will go back to our Arab nation to take the necessary decision at the highest level."
However, two senior Palestinian officials involved in the negotiations with Israel expressed reservations about Abbed Rabbo's statement.
"This option is excluded and has never been discussed among the Palestinian leaders," chief negotiator Ahmed Qureia said in a statement faxed to the media.
"What we want is independence, not through declarations, but through an Israeli withdrawal," said Saeb Erekat, also a member of the negotiating team.
He said the Palestinians were trying to end Israel's occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem through negotiations. "We are not Kosovo," he told a news conference in Ramallah, but nevertheless added, "the Palestinian leadership is studying all ideas."
An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said peace negotiations were the "right way" to end the conflict, not unilateral declarations.
Israel has thus far not recognized Kosovo and issued a statement saying only that it was "monitoring" developments there. Commentators have said it fears the unilateral declaration by Kosovo could set a precedent.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Abbas meanwhile, agreed in their latest meeting in Jerusalem late Tuesday to accelerate the peace negotiations, amid increasing doubts that the sides can meet their target of reaching an agreement by the end of the year.
The negotiating teams headed by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Qureia would now meet "almost every day" in between the bi-weekly parleys of Olmert and Abbas, Olmert's spokesman, Mark Regev said.
He said the parties did not debate the future of Jerusalem in their meeting Tuesday.
"We believe that in order to have success, we must create a logical momentum inside the negotiations, in which we start with those issues whose gaps are easier to bridge and then move on to the more difficult issues," Regev told Deustche Presse-Agentur dpa.
Olmert wants to tackle core issues like the borders of the future Palestinian state - which he deems less sensitive - first. A key coalition partner, the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, has threatened to quit the government if it starts negotiating about Jerusalem.
But the Palestinians have insisted that none of the core issues of their mutual conflict should be postponed.
Abed Rabbo accused Israel of "wasting time" and "failing to move forward with the negotiations" while it was creating new facts on the ground with settlement construction, building the West Bank security wall and postponing final status issues such as Jerusalem.
"The negotiations are not going anywhere," he told Voice of Palestine Radio.
"If Kosovo was able to unilaterally declare independence and gain recognition from the United States, the European Union and many other important countries, then why can't we do the same?"
But Israeli Foreign Ministry Spokesman Arieh Mekel, dismissing the call, said Palestinian statehood had "to be reached by agreement and not by unilateral declarations."
"Basically there is a peace process which is going on and making progress. This is the right way we believe and the Palestinians believe," he said.
Erekat too said the talks with Israel were "serious." He confirmed the two sides agreed "to intensify the negotiations" and hold another summit after two weeks.
Late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat already issued a unilateral declaration of independence in Algiers in 1988, but at the time there was no Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza, and Arafat led the Palestinians from exile in Tunisia.
