Jazeera leaks a 'boring soap opera': Abbas



RAMALLAH- Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Tuesday dismissed the leak of hundreds of secret files on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks as nothing but a "boring soap opera."
Arriving back in the West Bank city of Ramallah from Jordan, Abbas was greeted by hundreds of supporters at his Muqata headquarters after the Al-Jazeera news channel began publishing hundreds of documents exposing his government's negotiations with Israel.



Jazeera leaks a 'boring soap opera': Abbas
"This is a boring soap opera," he told the crowd. "We know how to respond to it and how to deal with it," he said. "We're not shocked by this nonsense."
The Palestinian Authority has been deeply embarrassed by information made public in the leaks, including details on the large amount of land in Arab east Jerusalem that negotiators were willing to cede to Israel in a peace deal.
But Abbas defended the negotiations on Tuesday, saying the documents did not reveal anything inappropriate.
"We have nothing to hide and there isn't a single document there that we didn't tell the Arab nations about, on an individual and collective basis," he said.
"The Palestinian constants... have not changed and will not change, and the first among these constants is Jerusalem," he said.
Al-Jazeera is leaking more than 1,600 files on peace talks with Israel going back more than 10 years.
The files show Palestinian negotiators were willing to make unprecedented concessions on issues including Jerusalem and the return of Palestinian refugees in order to achieve a peace deal.
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Tuesday, January 25th 2011
AFP
           


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