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Abbas says Israel must accept 1967 borders as baseline if direct talks are to resume

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he'll resume direct peace talks if Israel accepts its 1967 frontier as a baseline for the borders of a Palestinian state and agrees to the deployment of an international force to guard them.

Abbas is under growing pressure from the United States to resume negotiations, and met Saturday with President Barack Obama's Mideast envoy, George Mitchell.

Abbas' latest comments, published Saturday in the Jordanian newspaper Al-Ghad, hinted at some flexibility in his position. The Palestinian leader did not mention a comprehensive Israeli settlement freeze as a condition for negotiations — something he has underlined as crucial in the past....

Read entire article at AP