Iran: Mideast peace talks bound to fail

The Iranian president says any Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are bound to fail as long as the main problems of the Palestinian nation remain unresolved.

“Tens of rounds of negotiations have been held for more than 30 years and tens of plans have been put forward but they have all failed,” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in an interview with al-Alam news channel on Wednesday.

The president said that the main reason behind the failure of the negotiations and plans lied in the very fact that they all failed to take into consideration the Palestinians’ demands and their main problems.

Ahmadinejad said that the Palestinian side involved in the negotiations should be the representative of the nation, adding that the Hamas movement, which is backed by the Palestinian people, could be viewed as “the most official representative” of the Palestinian nation, since it won the last general elections held in Palestine.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and acting Palestinian Authority (PA) Chief Mahmoud Abbas are scheduled to sit in Washington on Thursday to resume direct talks that froze in December 2008 after Israel launched a deadly attack on the Gaza Strip.

Abbas, who agreed to sit at the negotiating table with Israel without any preconditions, is facing mounting criticism from Palestinians who accuse the PA with bending under “US and Israeli pressure.”

They have also raised concerns that further concessions on the part of Abbas could lead to an intensified violation of their rights by Israel.

Ahmadinejad said that the US could not act as a mediator for talks since it is the main supporter of Israel.

“Experience has shown that the governments in America have absolutely supported the Zionist regime and its crimes [throughout history]. How can they mediate talks?” he said.

The Iranian president said that the so-called peace talks could neither buy legitimacy for Israel nor solve the Middle East conflict.

He described such negotiations as a plot devised by the US to win support for Democrats against Republicans in midterm elections which will be held in two months’ time.

The Palestinian issue will not be solved unless their right to determine their fate is recognized, Ahmadinejad concluded.