Chairman of the Palestinian Authority Abu Mazen said today that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's decision to freeze construction in the settlements does not necessarily mean that construction will stop completely. Abu Mazen said that if Israel will commit itself to stop construction entirely and return to the borders of '67, then the Palestinians will resume negotiations with Israel.

"When Israel will completely stop construction in the territories and accept the borders that we demand –nothing will stop us from resuming the negotiations that were started in Annapolis", he said. Abu Mazen furthermore claimed that Israel had accepted these preconditions at the time of the Road Map initiative.

Abu Mazen additionally said that Israel is the one who is insisting on pre-conditions since it demands that Jerusalem not be a part of the negotiations, and that construction in the settlements will continue. According to Abu Mazen, a ten-month construction freeze is insufficient, as it is only partial and the existing building sites in the settlements are receiving state funding.

Abu Mazen spoke before the PLO Central Committee in Ramallah yesterday and praised the U.N resolution to accept Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian State. He said that "the world must recognize the borders of '67 as the basis for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians", and declared that the Palestinians would never give up their principles.