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Mon, Sept 06, 2010 | Fars News Agency

Ambassador Kazzem Qaribabadi

Iranian Envoy: Israel-PA Talks Doomed to Failure

Tehran (FNA) – The new round of talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority will fail to produce any positive results for the oppressed Palestinian people similar to the previous talks between the two sides, Iranian Ambassador to the Netherlands Kazzem Qaribabadi said.

Qaribabadi said the real representatives of the Palestinian people (i.e. Iran’s proxy Hamas) had serious qualms about these negotiations.

He added these Mideast talks did not focus on the roots of the problem. Qaribabadi stressed in an interview with the online Arabic-language news site Al-Farsiyah that the Palestinian cause was not only an Islamic but a global issue.

He pointed out Israel’s crimes in Gaza and the lethal attack on the Turkish Gaza aid flotilla had caused international outrage, while saying the issue of Qods had turned from an Islamic issue into a human issue.

Qaribabadi regretted the fact that none of the international organizations were dealing with the crimes of the Zionist regime.

This regime can commit crimes with the support of western countries and does not even have to fear any prosecution, he added.

The Iranian diplomat made it clear that it was the duty of Islamic and non-Islamic countries to defend the rights of the Palestinian people vis-a-vis the Zionist regime.

In an earlier report he also criticized “the biased and selective approach” adopted by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague towards the Palestinian issue and the crimes committed by the Zionist regime.

“The (International Court of Justice in the) Hague is the center of the international laws but unfortunately some of its courts have acted upon a selective approach in recent years,” Qaribabadi said during a recent visit to the northern Iranian province of Golestan.

Referring to his repeated meetings with the ICJ officials, he reiterated that during the talks he had blasted the international body’s negligence towards the “Zionist regime’s crimes in Gaza, Palestine as well as the (Israeli) attack on the freedom flotilla”. (Fars News Agency; Aug 01, 2010)

His remarks are the latest in a series of blunt exchanges with the Palestinian Authority over its president’s decision to renew direct peace talks with Israel.
The two sides have been publicly criticizing each other since Friday, when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the talks would fail. He made the comments on Quds Day, an annual holiday in Iran that marks the country’s solidarity with Palestinians and calls for the end of Israeli occupation.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority, fired back Saturday, saying Ahmadinejad, “who does not represent the Iranian people, who forged elections and who suppresses the Iranian people and stole the authority, is not entitled to talk about Palestine, or the President of Palestine.” (CNN, sept 05, 2010)

Acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Washington on Thursday to resume direct negotiations 20 months after talks ran aground in the wake of Israel’s December 2008-January 2009 war against the Gaza Strip, which claimed the lives of at least 1,400 Palestinians.

Palestinians have mostly voiced opposition against the US-sponsored talks between the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority and Tel Aviv, saying the negotiations would only embolden the Israeli occupation.