Special report: Palestine-Israel Relations

    RAMALLAH, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat on Saturday said he doubts that the recent Israeli offers published in the Israeli media on reaching a peace settlement with the Palestinians "are serious."

    Erekat, meanwhile, said in a statement sent to the press that the latest Israeli reports saying that there are plans to reach a peace agreement before the end of the year "is reflecting the current internal Israeli political crisis."

    "The reports are just trial balloons that Israel pops from time to time in order to lay the blame on the Palestinian side (for the failure of talks). In addition, it reflects the internal political crisis that Israel is passing through nowadays," Erekat said.

    Last week, two reports published in the Israeli Ha'aretz Daily showing offers for peace solutions with the Palestinians on permanent status issues.

    The offers dealt with the land and the borders of the future Palestinian statehood and refugees. The Palestinians rejected them saying they were "partial" and neglected other key final-status issues, such as Jerusalem.

    The reports said these offers were presented to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas during his nearly bi-weekly meetings with Israeli premier Ehud Olmert.

    The U.S. mediated to resume the negotiation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) last November, hoping that the two sides will reach a deal before the end of 2008.

    But Erekat says Israel continues to "expand settlements, build the (West Bank) separation fence, raid and storm the West Bank and conduct arrests and imposing new facts on the ground," and because of that the peace talks made no tangible progress.

    He also said that the negotiations should, at the end, lead to an Israeli withdrawal from the territories it occupied in 1967, establishing a Palestinian statehood on these territories and resolving all final-status issues.