NEWS,27.07.2013

Obama marks Korean war truce

US President Barack Obama is marking the 60th anniversary of the end of the Korean War.

Obama is delivering remarks on Saturday at a commemorative ceremony at the Korean War Veterans Memorial on the National Mall.

The 1950 - 1953 Korean war pitted North Korean and Chinese troops against US-led UN and South Korean forces. It ended on 27 July 1953 - 60 years ago on Saturday - with the signing of an armistice.

But a formal peace treaty was never signed, leaving the Korean Peninsula in a technical state of war and divided at the 38th parallel between its communist north and democratic south.

At least 2.5 million people were killed in the fighting.

In a proclamation declaring on Saturday as National Korean War Veterans Armistice Day, Obama said the anniversary marks the end of the war and the beginning of a long and prosperous peace.

In the six decades since the end of hostilities, Obama said, South Korea has become a close US ally and one of the world's largest economies.

He said the partnership remains "a bedrock of stability" throughout the Pacific region, and gave credit to the US service members who fought all those years ago and to the men and women currently stationed there.

Japan military plan worries China

China's Defence Ministry on Saturday urged international vigilance of Japan's military plans after it unveiled an interim report calling for strengthened armed forces, including the possible acquisition of the ability to hit enemy bases.

Japan's proposal  its latest step away from the constraints of its pacifist constitution  is part of a review of defence policy by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government, which released an interim report on the issue on Friday. Final review conclusions are due by the end of the year.

Japan's Defence Ministry also said it would consider buying unmanned surveillance drones, create a force of Marines to protect remote islands, such as those disputed with China, and consider beefing up the ability to transport troops to far-flung isles.

"The sections about China in this report by Japan are playing on the same old themes, exaggerating the military threat from China, and have ulterior motives," China's Defence Ministry said in a statement on its website.

"This year, Japan has come up with all kinds of excuses to continue to expand its armaments... creating tensions in the region. These moves deserve the highest vigilance from neighbouring countries in Asia and from the international community," it said.

Security environment

The hawkish Abe took office in December for a rare second term, pledging to bolster the military to cope with what Japan sees as an increasingly threatening security environment including an assertive China and an unpredictable North Korea.

Abe called on Friday for a leaders' summit or a foreign ministers' meeting between his country and China as soon as possible.

But Abe's appeal drew a cool reaction from China which accused Japan of lacking sincerity.

Over the past year, China's stand-off with Japan over a string of uninhabited rocky islands in the East China Sea known as the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China has become more acrimonious.

China also believes that Japan has never properly atoned for its brutal invasion and occupation of parts of the country before and during World War Two.

Europe's Incomplete One-Year Anniversary

Exactly a year ago when Mario Draghi, the well-respected president of the European Central Bank (ECB), made his now-famous "whatever it takes" remarks.
Twelve months later, this stands out as the boldest and most successful initiative in the history of modern central banking. Yet the durability of the benefits is undermined by Europe's frustratingly slow progress in getting to grips with its growth and employment deficits.
Europe's economic context was a daunting one that sunny day in London.
The Eurozone's financial system was fragmenting and deposits were fleeing struggling banks. Credit intermediation was coming to a complete stop, starving companies of working capital and putting investment plans on hold. Financial markets were in turmoil, with surging borrowing costs threatening sovereign creditworthiness and eroding liquidity.
In essence, Europe stood on the verge of a great depression, facing an immediate future of serial bankruptcies and massive unemployment.
In a conference organized by the British government, Mr. Draghi took the stage for a panel of central bankers' panel. In addition to those in the room attending the "Global Investment Conference," the event was well covered by the media and simultaneously streamed to nervous world markets.
Mr. Draghi totally upstaged his colleagues on the panel. He directly and frankly addressed the what, how and why of Europe's enormous financial strains. Comparing the Eurozone to a bumble bee that is able to fly despite seemingly-irregular aerodynamic properties, he confidently and calmly re-assured all that were listening that "the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. And believe me, it will be enough."
It was an extremely bold step.
Mr. Draghi courageously placed the ECB front and center in what were (and still are) complicated and stressful political interactions among the 17 member governments of the Eurozone. He seemingly did so without fully consulting with his colleagues on the central bank's governing council. And he put forward ambitious claims without concrete measures to back them as yet. (These came later, culminating in a dramatic ECB announcement in September.)
It also turned out to be an extremely successful step.
Without spending a single Euro, Mr. Draghi calmed markets, reversed the bank deposit flight and allowed the financial system to partially heal. In the process, he managed to unify a governing council that could have easily disintegrated into one big national political mess - thus bringing an important element of coherence to often-erratic cross-border and regional interactions.
Yet I suspect that the one-year celebration will not be an entirely satisfactory one for Mr. Draghi and his ECB colleagues.
While they brilliantly delivered and did so by literally making it up as they went along national and regional politicians have lagged. As such, the financial improvement has not been accompanied by a meaningful change in what matters most: namely, the ability to generate economic growth, create jobs and arrest excessive income and wealth inequalities.
Europe's incomplete anniversary speaks to a broader phenomenon that serially frustrates the global economy from recovering fully from the shock of the 2008 global financial crisis: Politicians have failed to exploit the window offered by experimental central bank policies, and continue to do so.
In Europe, national governments still differ on the causes of the region's malaise; and if you cannot agree on history or at least put it aside it is hard to press forward with a unified and credible vision that gets sufficient buy-in from naturally-skeptical citizens.
In the United States, a polarized Congress has undermined virtually every policy step proposed by the Obama Administration to bring the economy closer to escape velocity for economic growth and job creation; and Capitol Hill has done so regardless of merit and need. As such, the Federal Reserve has felt compelled to venture deeper and deeper into experimental policies, raising concerns about collateral costs and unintended consequences.
In celebrating the one-year anniversary, the West would be well advised to look beyond the great success of a courageous (and extremely cost effective) policy measure.
We should also think in terms of foregone opportunities. And we should constantly remember the millions of unemployed, the alarmingly high joblessness among the young, the struggles that too many face in securing their families wellbeing, and the growing number of retirees that are legitimately worried about their pensions.
They all serve as a vivid reminder of an incomplete success. Hopefully, they will also add to the calls for more comprehensive and durable actions.

Israel's Cabinet To Vote On Freeing Palestinian Prisoners Ahead Of Peace Talks

In April 1993, Omar Masoud and three accomplices broke into a European aid office in Gaza City, grabbed a young Israeli lawyer working there and stabbed him to death.
Israel arrested Masoud a month later and sentenced him to life, meaning he was doomed to die in prison one day for killing the lawyer in the name of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a small PLO faction.
Now Masoud, along with dozens of other long-term Palestinian prisoners, is up for release as part of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's attempt to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks after five years of diplomatic paralysis.
Israel's Cabinet is being asked to approve a prisoner release in principle on Sunday, as part of a Kerry-brokered deal to get the two sides back to the table.
The Cabinet vote would pave the way for a preliminary meeting of Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in Washington on Tuesday, followed by up to nine months of talks in the region on setting up a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Such a deal has eluded Israelis and Palestinians for two decades and they have low expectations.
The fate of those held in Israeli jails is an emotionally wrought issue for Palestinians, who view the prisoners as heroes who made personal sacrifices in the struggle for statehood.
A prisoner release particularly of lifers with "blood their hands" would go a long way toward giving Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas a popular mandate to give talks another shot, even if many Palestinians believe Israel's hardline prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is not serious about a deal.
Israelis tend to view the prisoners as cold-blooded terrorists, and early releases of security prisoners in previous swaps elicited vociferous objections from the public, including Supreme Court appeals.
For Israel's government, approving the release of prisoners it refused to free in the past even if in stages and linked to progress in talks poses the most difficult test so far of its professed willingness to reach a peace deal.
In a statement late Saturday, Netanyahu said that a decision to release prisoners is "painful to the bereaved families, painful to the people of Israel and very painful for me."
Yet, he said, prime ministers "are required from time to time to take decisions that are against public opinion if it is important to the state," signaling he is pushing for Cabinet approval of the release.
Abbas, meanwhile, briefed reporters on the terms of the upcoming negotiations, based on what he said were Kerry's assurances to him. He said the American invitation would state that the talks will be about establishing a Palestinian state next to Israel, based on the 1967 borders and with mutually agreed upon land swaps.
The Palestinians want to set up a state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem lands Israel captured in 1967. In previous negotiations, Abbas offered to trade 1.9 percent of West Bank land for the same amount of Israeli territory, a swap that would enable Israel to keep some of the dozens of Jewish settlements it has built since 1967.
Israeli officials have declined comment on the negotiations. Netanyahu refused in the past to accept the 1967 lines as a starting point, and it's not clear whether his position has changed.
Abbas said the situation would become clearer after Sunday's Cabinet meeting.
A senior Palestinian official said the Palestinians would go to talks without Israel having agreed to a freeze of settlement building in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. Nearly 600,000 Jews already live there, and thousands of homes are under construction.
In guidelines for the talks requested by the Palestinians, Kerry stipulated earlier this month that both sides have to refrain from unilateral steps, according to the Palestinian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of a gag order the U.S. secretary of state slapped on the negotiators.
The Palestinians understand this to mean that Israel will slow down settlement construction and refrain from provocative steps, such as announcing new projects, the official said. The Palestinians, in turn, will suspend plans to seek further recognition at the U.N. General Assembly, which last year recognized a state of Palestine in the 1967 borders. Israel fears further international isolation as a result of Palestinian activity at the U.N.
Abbas has argued he would need either a settlement freeze or Israeli recognition of the 1967 lines as a baseline to be able to resume negotiations.
In Sunday's Cabinet meeting, ministers will be asked to vote on a number of fateful issues, an official in Netanyahu's office said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with briefing regulations.
The ministers will be asked to authorize the resumption of talks with the Palestinians and appoint a team reportedly the premier and three ministers to oversee the negotiations.
They will be asked to approve an amended bill that would require a national referendum on any partition deal with the Palestinians.
Netanyahu's decision to fast-track the referendum bill has prompted contradictory speculation. Some say this shows the lifelong hawk is serious about a deal this time and wants to silence opposition by ultra-nationalists in his Likud party and his coalition from the outset. Others suspect he is trying to create new obstacles to any agreement.
The Cabinet ministers would also have to approve, in principle, a release of Palestinian prisoners who were arrested before the start of the so-called Oslo talks on interim peace deals in the early 1990s.
Abbas gave Kerry a list of 104 names, including that of Omar Masoud who is No. 77, ranked by seniority. The two longest-held at the top of the list are cousins Karim and Maher Younis, imprisoned since 1983 for kidnapping and killing an Israeli soldier, Palestinian officials said.
When Israeli media reported last week that Israel would only release 82 and that Palestinians from Israel and east Jerusalem would not be freed, Abbas asked Kerry for clarifications.
The U.S. diplomat gave Abbas to understand that all 104 would be freed, said a Palestinian official, also speaking anonymously to avoid violating Kerry's call for discretion. The prisoners are to be released in four stages over six months, beginning a month after the resumption of talks, the official said.
As of late June, nearly 5,000 Palestinians were being held by Israel.
Masoud's mother, 70-year-old Tamam, said she is optimistic.
"I hope everything will work out between Jews and Arabs," she said, speaking in her shack in the Shati refugee camp. Abbas "took a good step by talking about releasing prisoners," she said.
Omar Masoud's family was evasive when asked about the killing, portraying it as the rash act of an immature youth. A recent prison photo of him showed a balding middle-aged man who his mother says often cooks for other prisoners because of his work experience as a teenager in an Israeli restaurant.
Despite considerable opposition in Israel to prisoner releases, polls indicate a majority support a resumption of peace talks. Yuval Diskin, former head of Israel's domestic security agency Shin Bet, expressed that ambivalence.
He noted that he opposed a 2011 swap in which Israel agreed to free some 1,000 Palestinians for an Israeli soldier held by Gaza militants, but that the upcoming round of talks may be the last chance for a deal.
"We need to understand that the negotiations cart is stuck in very, very deep mud," he told Israel TV's Channel 10 on Friday. "And there are some very painful things that will need to happen in order to get that cart out of the mud."

NEWS,21.07.2013

OECD publishes plan to cut tax evasion

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) unveiled new plans to tackle tax evasion by improving the way tax authorities share information about individuals and entities like trusts.
Countries are increasingly moving to a standard of sharing information on taxpayers even in the absence of any specific request.
This is more likely to flag up inappropriate behaviour than the longer established practice of one tax authority starting an investigation into suspicions of wrongdoing, and then making a request for data.
The European Union has estimated hundreds of billions of euros are lost each year to tax evasion. The stashing of undeclared earnings in accounts in offshore jurisdictions has long been a favoured method for hiding cash from one's home tax authority, aided by the veil of secrecy.
The OECD, which advises its mainly rich nation members on economic and tax policy, issued an updated standard for the automatic exchange of information at the sidelines of a meeting of G20 finance ministers on Saturday.
The OECD has proposed a detailed description of the kinds of information that would be exchanged and proposals for common legal and technological standards to facilitate the flow of information.
The OECD hopes to have a new draft agreement ready for countries to sign in late 2013.
The shift to an international standard on automatic sharing of information has been accelerated by the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (Fatca) which forces banks outside the United States to give Washington details of foreign accounts held by US citizens.
Countries like Bermuda, often labelled a tax haven by Western lawmakers, said that once they agreed to share information with the United States, other large countries pressured them for a similar deal.

China frees up lending rates

China's central bank removed controls on bank lending rates, effective on Saturday, in a long-awaited move that signals the new leadership's determination to carry out market-oriented reforms.
The move gives commercial banks the freedom to compete for borrowers, a reform the People's Bank of China said on Friday will help lower financial costs for companies. Previously, the lending floor was 70% of the benchmark lending rate.
However, the PBOC, in a statement, left a ceiling on deposit rates unchanged at 110% of benchmark rates, avoiding for now what many economists see as the most important step Beijing needs to take to free up interest rates.
The latest step underscores Beijing's resolve to start fixing distortions in its financial system and the economy more broadly as it tries to shift from export- and investment-led growth to more consumption-led activity.
Some analysts said cheaper credit could help support the economy, which has seen year-on-year growth fall in nine of the last 10 quarters.
"This is a big breakthrough in financial reforms," said Wang Jun, senior economist at China Centre for International Economic Exchanges, a prominent government think-tank in Beijing.
"Previously, people had thought the central bank would only gradually lower the floor on lending rates. Now they scrapped the floor once and for all."
The Australian dollar rose modestly on the news on hopes cheaper credit will lead to more demand from Australia's biggest export market.
The announcement provided some support to weak stock markets in Europe and a timely reminder to the world's top financial leaders meeting in Moscow of China's intention to rebalance its economy.
A Group of 20 draft communique will urge China to encourage more domestic demand-driven growth as part of wider efforts to rebalance the world economy, G20 sources said.
The United States welcomed the move, saying China promised to let markets play a bigger role in allocating credit during the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Washington last week.
"This is a welcome further step in the reform and liberalisation of China's financial system," Holly Shulman, a spokesperson for the US Treasury, said in an email.
Signal of resolve
China's big lenders, such as Industrial and Commercial Bank of China , China Construction Bank, Bank of China and Agricultural Bank of China have generally resisted interest rate reforms because they do not want to see their rate margins get squeezed.
But many economists say such a push is necessary so that lenders learn to better price risk, which will force them to allocate capital more efficiently and so help rebalance an economy saddled with overinvestment and overcapacity in sectors from cement to steel making to solar panels.
Scrapping the lending floor will likely cut borrowing costs for businesses and individuals, ending what many observers say had been artificially high rates that benefited state lenders at the expense of private enterprise.
Some economists were sceptical at how much direct economic impact the move would have because few banks have fully utilised the limited freedom they already had to charge interest rates slightly below benchmark rates, choosing instead to keep their rates slightly above the floor that has been in place.
"So the move may have more of a signalling effect than transmit immediately to the economy but it is an important signalling effect," said Manik Narain, emerging market strategist at UBS in London.
However, to the extent that it does lead banks to lower their lending rates, the move could serve to stimulate investment at a time when the world's second-largest economy is running around its lowest growth rates since 2009, having logged 7.5 percent growth in the second quarter.
More important, though, is the sign that policymakers are getting serious about tackling challenging reforms, just four months after Premier Li Keqiang took office, analysts said.
"This is one of the biggest steps they could have taken," said Mark Williams, chief Asia economist at Capital Economics. "It tells you something about the trajectory."
The need for financial reforms was put on full display in late June, when the central bank attempted to choke off funds flowing to "shadow banking" activities, leading to a crunch in the country's money markets that sent short-term borrowing rates to levels normally seen only during financial crises, prompting jitters among investors around the world.
The shadow banking sector, or non-bank lending, has ballooned in recent years, raising concerns that authorities are losing track of potential bad debts building in the economy.
Long path ahead
The central bank said it is also scrapping controls on rates on discounted bills, a common form of payment among companies.
The PBOC made clear in its statement it does not intend to ease up on its controls over mortgage rates. Beijing has been clamping down on the property sector for several years to try to keep a lid on rising prices and speculative buying.
It said it planned to free up deposit rates eventually but now was not the right time. It said it still needed to do more groundwork, which is expected to include launching a deposit insurance system, something many observers expect may happen this year.
"(Reform of deposit rates) is more difficult and more sensitive. We should not expect it to happen very soon," said Yu Yongding, former member of the central bank's monetary policy committee and a researcher at the Chinese Academy Of Social Sciences in Beijing.
Beijing worries that allowing banks to raise deposit rates to compete for funds could crush some smaller lenders and force them to go bust.
Longer term, the latest move could signal that the government will step up other reforms seen as necessary to help rebalance the economy.
"This underlines that China is moving to a fully convertible currency and floating exchange rates," said Flemming Nielsen, senior analyst at Danske Bank in Copenhagen. "Their next step will be to widen the daily trading band for RMB (yuan). They should do that within the next three months."

Israel to free Palestinian prisoners

Israel announced on Saturday it will release some Palestinian prisoners as a "gesture", after the two sides agreed to lay the groundwork to resume peace negotiations frozen for three years.

Some of those to be freed have been in prison for decades, Israeli Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz said.

His announcement came hours after US Secretary of State John Kerry said Israeli and Palestinian negotiators had agreed to meet to pave the way for a resumption of direct peace talks.

The last round of direct talks broke down in 2010 over the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

Speaking on privately owned Channel 2, Israeli Justice Minister and chief peace negotiator Tzipi Livni noted that while there were no preconditions to talks, "everything will be on the table", including the 1967 borders and east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as their future capital.

Steinitz said his government would engage in the staggered release of a "limited number" of prisoners, some of whom he defined as "heavyweights", who have been in jail for up to 30 years.

4 713 imprisoned

"There will definitely be a certain gesture here", he said, without noting how many prisoners were to be freed.

According to Israeli rights group B'Tselem, at least 4 713 Palestinians are imprisoned in the Jewish state.

Their release is one of the Palestinians' key demands for resuming peace talks, particularly the 107 prisoners arrested prior to 1993, when the Oslo peace accords were signed.

An Israeli official said no prisoners would be released before direct talks begin, and the process would then be dependent on the Palestinians proving they are "really serious and not playing games".

"It won't happen tomorrow and not next week," the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. He could also give no indication of the number of prisoners involved.

He said the releases, once they begin, would take place in stages and include "pre-Oslo prisoners, prisoners set to be released anyway, and those the Palestinians 'forgot' during the Oslo accords".

Commitment

Steinitz said Israel would not compromise "diplomatic issues", and that there was no agreement on a settlement construction freeze or on accepting the borders that existed prior to 1967 Six-Day war as the basis for talks, as the Palestinians demand.

He said the Palestinians had committed to "negotiate seriously" for "at least nine months", during time which they would refrain from taking action at the United Nations and other international institutions.

Kerry gave away very little detail of the agreement, which came after four days of consultations with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, saying both sides had reached "an agreement that establishes a basis for resuming direct final status negotiations".

"This is a significant and welcome step forward," he added, having doggedly pushed the two sides to agree to resume talks in six intense trips to the region since becoming secretary of state in February.

A State Department official said Kerry had wrenched a commitment from both sides "on the core elements that will allow direct talks to begin".

The Israelis and Palestinians remain far apart on final status issues including the borders of a future Palestinian state, the right of return of Palestinian refugees and Jerusalem.

'Ball in Israel's court'

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has also repeatedly called for a freeze to Israeli settlement building and a prisoner release.

"The ball is now in Israel's court," a Palestinian official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"Kerry has proposed the bases for a resumption of negotiations and asked [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu to respond favourably to one of them.

"The bases are the release of Palestinians jailed before the Oslo accords, minors, the sick or the elderly," he said. "And that Israel recognise the 1967 border lines as a reference point, or a halt to settlement building."

The official said Netanyahu had agreed to hold a special cabinet session to draw up Israel's response to Kerry's proposals.

The Islamist Hamas movement which runs the Gaza Strip rejected a return to talks, saying Abbas had no legitimate right to negotiate on behalf of the Palestinian people.

And the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine warned that "a return to talks outside the framework of the United Nations and its resolutions would be political suicide".

Venezuela ends rapprochement with US

Venezuela says it has "ended" its rapprochement with the United States due to a statement by Samantha Power, nominated to become the US envoy to the United Nations.
Power said at a US Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday that if she got the job she would stand up to "repressive regimes" and challenge the "crackdown on civil society being carried out in countries like Cuba, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela."
Washington and Caracas have not exchanged ambassadors since 2010 even though Venezuela exports 900 000 barrels of oil to the US per day.
"The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela hereby ends the process ... of finally normalising our diplomatic relations" that began in early June, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Venezuela is opposed to the "interventionist agenda" presented by Power and noted that her "disrespectful opinions" were later endorsed by the State Department, "contradicting in tone and in content" earlier statements by Secretary of State John Kerry.
Kerry and his Venezuelan counterpart, Elias Jaua, agreed on the sidelines of an Organisation of American States meeting in Guatemala in June that officials would "soon" meet for talks that could lead to an exchange of ambassadors.

NEWS,05.06.2013

Netanyahu ready to consider peace plan

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signalled readiness on Wednesday to consider a 2002 Arab peace plan whose terms were recently softened to include possible land swaps between Israel and the Palestinians.
"We are listening to every initiative the Arab initiative has been mentioned and we are prepared to discuss initiatives that are proposals and not edicts," he said in a speech in parliament.
Netanyahu spoke during a debate on the plan, proposed at an Arab League summit 11 years ago. Israel had rejected the initiative that offered normalised ties for it with much of the Arab world, citing its call for complete withdrawal from land captured in the 1967 Middle East war as a main stumbling block.
Israel occupied the West Bank, Arab East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, areas Palestinians seeks for a future state, in that conflict.
Echoing previous Israeli leaders, Netanyahu has ruled out a return to pre-1967 war frontiers, calling them indefensible.
But a month ago, Arab states appeared to soften the 2002 plan when Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, Qatar's prime minister and foreign minister, said Israel and the Palestinians could trade land rather than conform exactly to the 1967 lines.
Netanyahu, who heads the right-wing Likud party, has never endorsed the idea of territorial exchange publicly. A 2009 US diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks in 2010 said he expressed support for the concept in a meeting with US legislators.
In his address to the legislature, Netanyahu repeated a call to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to return unconditionally to peace talks that collapsed in 2010 over continued Israeli settlement building on occupied land.
Abbas has said Israel must first stop settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem before the U.S.-hosted negotiations can resume.
"Since he (Abbas) doesn't speak Hebrew, and my Arabic is not great, I am calling on him in a language we both know and saying to him, 'Give peace a chance', Netanyahu said, switching to English to utter the phrase.
"Don't miss the opportunity," he added, saying he was prepared to make "difficult decisions to move negotiations ahead" but cautioning he would take no moves that would jeopardise Israeli security.
Abbas said on Tuesday "the ball is in the Israeli court" and Israel needed to accept the Palestinians' demand for a settlement freeze so that talks could begin.
US Secretary of State John Kerry has been trying to restart the negotiations. He has made four trips to the region since taking office four months ago and a State Department spokeswoman said on Tuesday he could return to Israel and the Palestinian territories as early as next week.

Rice to be Obama's security advisor

President Barack Obama will name UN ambassador Susan Rice as his new national security advisor Wednesday, months after her hopes of becoming the top US diplomat were scuppered by the Benghazi affair.
Rice will take over from Obama's current national security advisor Tom Donilon in July, in a shake-up of his foreign policy team that will see former aide and genocide expert Samantha Power take the top United Nations job.
The move marks a swift turnaround in fortunes for Rice, 48, who pulled out of consideration to be Obama's second term secretary of state, a victim of the controversy over the attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya.
"The President will announce that after more than four years at the National Security Council, Tom Donilon will be departing as National Security Advisor in early July and will be succeeded by Ambassador Susan Rice," a US official said.
The official said that Obama would also use the ceremony to name Power, a former foreign policy aide, genocide expert and Pulitzer prize-winning author, to replace Rice as US ambassador to the United Nations, the official said.
Donilon has been at Obama's side since he entered the White House in 2009, and took over from the president's first national security advisor, retired general James Jones, in 2010.
He was at the center of the decision to pull US troops out of Iraq, to withdraw combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of next year and the killing of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.
Donilon has also been a key figure in China policy, masterminding Obama's diplomatic 'pivot' to Asia, and recently traveled to Beijing to prepare for the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to California for talks with Obama later in the week.
His retirement has long been expected this year.
Donilon has kept a low public profile as national security advisor but has been a dominant force in the Obama administration. He is known for scrupulous preparation, driving staff hard and as an expert bureaucratic player.
He is also liked and respected by many colleagues, despite a recent profile on the Foreign Policy website which aired criticism of his personal style.
Rice, who served as an assistant secretary of state for Africa in the Clinton administration, has long been one of Obama's closest foreign policy aides, dating back to his 2008 campaign.
She was widely expected to be named secretary of state to follow the departing Hillary Clinton.
But she was accused by Republicans of deliberately misleading Americans over the origins of the attack on the Benghazi mission on September 11 last year, which killed four Americans including the ambassador.
However, recently released email traffic between top administration officials shows she had no role in crafting the talking points on the attack which she used on Sunday television talk shows to argue that the assault was part of a spontaneous anti-US protest rather than a planned terrorist attack.
At the time, Obama angrily rejected "outrageous" Republican attacks on Rice, saying she had done "exemplary work" at the UN, showing "skill and professionalism and toughness and grace."
Rice's removal from the race to be secretary of state opened the door for former senator John Kerry to take over a post he has long coveted.
She won plaudits in the White House for her work at the United Nations, lining up tough sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program.
She is known for a robust personal style and reputedly has sharp elbows, but she will derive considerable power from her status as one of Obama's original inner circle of foreign policy advisors.
Rice does not need to obtain Senate confirmation to serve as national security advisor, the president's closest foreign policy aide, so any residual opposition from Republicans will not be a problem for her.
Power, 42, formerly served Obama as a special assistant focusing on multilateral affairs and human rights. Before entering government, she won a Pulitzer Prize for a book focusing on American foreign policy and genocide.
The job of US ambassador to the United Nations will remain a cabinet position, a US official said.

New Pakistan PM vows to improve economy

As he stepped into the prime minister's job for the third time Wednesday, Nawaz Sharif vowed to improve Pakistan's limping economy and end American drone strikes. It was a nod to the voters who elected a man viewed as a pro-business conservative to tackle problems including a fiscal meltdown, power outages, and spillover from the war in neighboring Afghanistan.
His success in an office he was forced out of by a military coup in 1999 will hinge on how quickly he can address Pakistanis' most basic needs such as electricity and jobs, but many analysts believe his strong mandate at least gives him a fighting chance at success.
Sharif was elected by parliament Wednesday after his party won the 11 May nationwide elections. He was sworn in hours later by Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.
The country of 180 million people that Sharif must now lead is weighed down with a host of problems: unemployment, electricity blackouts, inflation, corruption and militancy. In a speech long on rhetoric but short on specifics, Sharif vowed to address the country's myriad of problems.
"I will do my best to change the fate of the people and Pakistan," he said.
Sharif is the first Pakistani leader to serve three terms. He was elected prime minister in 1990 and then again in 1997, thrown out of office in 1999 by a military coup, spent nearly eight years in exile, and then five years in opposition before returning to power.
During the campaign, he sometimes lashed out at the US and its policy of using unmanned aerial vehicles to kill militants in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Speaking to parliament after being elected, he once again called for an end to the drone policy.
"This daily routine of drone attacks, this chapter shall now be closed," Sharif said to widespread applause. "We do respect others' sovereignty. It is mandatory on others that they respect our sovereignty."
But he gave few details on how he might end the strikes. Many in Pakistan say the strikes kill large numbers of innocent civilians, something the US denies, and end up breeding more extremism by those seeking retribution with the US
The US considers the drone program vital to battling militants such as al-Qaeda, who use the tribal areas of Pakistan as a safe haven.
Many analysts say such anti-American sentiment may mellow or take a backseat to more pressing economic concerns in Sharif's administration. Pakistan will require American support for the likely economic bailout it will need from the International Monetary Fund, and the two sides both have an interest in finding a peaceful solution to the war in neighboring Afghanistan.
Sharif has also said that he would like good relations with the US and in his speech noted the need to pay attention to the concerns of "other countries."
But for most Pakistanis the drones are secondary to the issues that will define Sharif's tenure in office: the economy and electricity.
Over the last five years of the previous administration, power outages, some as long as 20 hours, have plagued the country. People suffer through sweltering summers, and in recent years gas shortages in the winter have left people unable to heat their houses.
Companies struggle to find a way to run businesses without a reliable source of electricity.
Sharif and his team of advisors have been meeting continuously with officials from the country's power-related industries and interim government officials from affected ministries to map out a strategy.
The new prime minister listed a litany of problems facing Pakistan during his speech, including unpaid loans, unemployment, a disillusioned youth, extremism and lawlessness, and widespread corruption.
Pakistani voters will be watching closely to see what he does to solve those problems.
Outside the parliament, Mohammed Aslam, who came from Sharif's hometown of Lahore to the capital for the ceremony, said he voted for Sharif because he promised to solve the electricity crisis. But he warned that Pakistanis will not tolerate bad governance for another five years.
"If he fails, he will go home next year," he said.
One thing going in Sharif's favor is his strong mandate. The previous Pakistan People's Party government kept their fragile coalition together for five years but had to constantly make concessions to smaller partners.
Sharif's party has a 176-seat majority in the 342-member house and a strong platform from which to address the country's economic problems. Sharif, who comes from a Pakistani business family that made its wealth in the steel industry, has widespread business support.
"I do actually see a lot of resolve. They have a very strong mandate," said Werner Liepach, Pakistan country head for the Asian Development Bank.
Sharif made little mention of the militant attacks and the fighting in Pakistan's tribal areas that have killed thousands of civilians and security forces. He has been accused of failing to go after extremist groups accused of sectarian violence that have a fairly open presence in Punjab province, despite the fact that Sharif's PML-N has controlled the province and its police for the last five years.
Sharif noted the historic nature of Wednesday's ceremony. His assumption of office marks the first time a democratically elected government has handed over power to another in the country's 65-year history.
"Now it should be decided forever that Pakistan's survival, protection, sovereignty, progress, prosperity and respect in the international community depends upon strengthening democracy in Pakistan," he said.