The Palestinian Authority will not return to peace talks with Israel unless there is a freeze on settlement building that includes East Jerusalem, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday.
Abbas said the Palestinians and Israel had received no official U.S. request to return to the talks, which began in September but stopped three weeks later after Israel refused to extend a freeze on new settlements in the West Bank.
Asked if the Palestinian Authority would agree to resume the talks if a new settlement freeze did not include East Jerusalem, he said: "Of course ... if there is no complete halt to settlements in all of the Palestinian territories including Jerusalem, we will not accept".
He was speaking to reporters after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo."
In his remark, the Palestinian president may have alluded to a report claiming Israel conditioned its willingness to extend the moratorium on West Bank settlement building by excluding East Jerusalem from such a freeze.
Israel and the United States have been engaged in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called "intensive" talks over Israel's demand to receive written guarantees in exchange for a new 90-day West Bank settlement freeze.
Also alluding to Israel's alleged demand to exclude East Jerusalem from a planned settlement freeze extension, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told Al-Jazeera TV last week that such a future Palestinian state would have no meaning without East Jerusalem as its capital.
If Israel does not halt construction there as well as in the settlements, he said, the Palestinians will seek statehood from the United Nations.
Another contentious clause in the deal being negotiated between Israel and the United States has been the alleged U.S. offer to provide Israel with 20 F-35 stealth warplanes worth $3 billion as part of a settlement freeze deal.
Politicians said Washington was backtracking and now wanted some sort of payment for the coveted fighter aircraft.
In Amman, Abbas told the Saudi daily Asharq Al Awsat that he rejects the linking of a U.S. fighter jets deal with Israel worth 3 billion dollars, in addition to 20 billion dollars of U.S. aid, to the 3-month freeze.
Abbas has also signaled that there would be no further negotiations unless Israel halted the construction of settlements on land that Palestinians argue should be part of a future Palestinian state.