By Palestine Media Center

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged the U.S. on Monday to make good on its promise to work for a Palestinian - Israeli peace settlement by the end of the year, warning that otherwise “there will never be any future chances to achieve this goal.”
Meanwhile Yasser Abed Rabbo, the Secretary General of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which is chaired by Abbas warned on the same day that peace talks with Israel face a “precarious impasse” that could lead the Palestinian leadership to look for other options within the framework of international legitimacy.
If the U.S. President George W. Bush administration didn't make good on its pledge to “make 2008 the year to broker peace, then there will never be any future chances to achieve this goal,” Abbas told reporters following a closed door meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah in the Jordanian capital of Amman.
The U.S. “must understand it is to play an active role, not just as a supervisor, by intervening directly to help make peace,” said Abbas.
The peace negotiations between the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and Israel “face a precarious impasse and the PNA could consequently resort to other options in accordance with international legitimacy,” the London – based Al-Quds Al-Arabi on Monday quoted Yasser Abed Rabbo as saying to the official Palestinian radio.
“No progress worth mentioning has been made” in the negotiations with Israel, he said, adding that, “Israel is playing a double game in its policies.”
Abed Rabbo last week floated the possibility of unilaterally declaring Palestinian independence, but Abbas ruled out this option and insisted on reaching a negotiated political settlement and commitment to the peace talks launched by the U.S.-hosted Annapolis peace conference on November 27 last year.
However, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday said that Kosovo's Western-backed unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia one week ago could spur Palestinians into following suit.
“At present there are already some Palestinian politicians who say it is futile to follow up negotiations with Israel and that these negotiations will not yield anything,” Lavrov said on the Vesti 24 television channel.
There is no doubt that if Palestine unilaterally declared independence many nations would recognize it, he said, adding: “And voices are starting to be heard saying that after the unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo we would proceed in the same way with a Palestinian state.”
On Monday also head of the PLO Negotiations Department Saeb Erekat denied an Israeli statement that joint teams of “experts” were set up to jumpstart the bilateral talks.
The teams will tackle a range of specific issues, from security to trade and water use, that would form part of any agreement on a Palestinian state, said Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Arye Mekel.
“If there is a need for talks between Palestinian and Israeli experts, it will be within the Palestinian negotiation team,” Erekat told the Voice of Palestine radio.
Both Palestinian and Israeli premiers are on record as ruling out a mutual peace deal this year.
“We have a desire to reach an agreement within the year 2008. But I am not sure we will make it,” Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in Tokyo Tuesday, reiterating a statement he made in an interview last Thursday with Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun.
“If the people can reach an understanding about principles and move to implement the road map [in which Israel must halt its settlement expansion, and the Palestinians must end anti-Israeli violence] then we will be able, in the meantime, to conclude the discussions about everything else,” Olmert said.
Similarly his Palestinian counterpart Salam Fayyad on February 19 ruled out a peace deal with Israel this year.
“I personally think that reaching a peace treaty in 2008 is impossible because the talks were very slow over the past three months,” Fayyad said during a meeting with a delegation from American Jews at his office in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
“The negotiations should be sped up to in order to reach the agreement by the end of this year,” Fayyad added.