LONDON, Feb. 28 (Xinhuanet) -- Palestine believes peace is possible with Israel and it is ready to negotiate with Israel to reach a true and lasting peace in the Middle East region, the British Independent newspaper on Monday quoted Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas as saying in an interview.

    "We have an opportunity and it would be irresponsible if we, the Israelis, or the world allow it to slip away," Abbas told the paper in his first interview with a British newspaper since his election on Jan. 9.

    "We believe peace is possible now and we are ready to negotiatewith Israel to reach a true and lasting peace based on justice andinternational legitimacy," Abbas said in the interview conducted by e-mail, after a weekend suicide bombing killed five Israelis ata Tel Aviv nightspot and wounded dozens more.

    Abbas, who would come to London to attend the Tuesday's conference to bolster support for the Palestinian Authority (PA), also stressed that an end to violence and "security chaos" was "first and foremost a Palestinian interest" and insisted that the PA was making "100 percent efforts" towards that and "it has yielded good results" so far.

    On Tuesday's meeting hosted by British Prime Minister Tony Blair and attended by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, as well as World Bank officials and foreign ministers from some 25 European and Arab countries, Abbas said he wanted the conference "to send a clear signal of theinternational support of what we have already achieved" in Palestinian efforts at institution-building and fulfillment of obligations under the internationally agreed Roadmap peace plan.

    He also said that he expected the meeting to lead to a full scale international conference "to relaunch final status negotiations and a credible peace process". Enditem