国际英语新闻：Palestinians unaware of new U.S. ideas over future state's borders

RAMALLAH, Dec. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Palestinian leadership is unaware of new U.S. ideas replacing previous understandings that all concerned parties had agreed on over the borders of future Palestinian statehood, a Palestinian official said Sunday.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, a member of Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) Executive Committee, said that the United States has not informed the Palestinians officially that it considers a new position regarding the borders of the future Palestinian statehood and relevant security issues.

Abed Rabbo's remarks came after Arab media reports said U.S. President Barack Obama's administration neglects initial agreements that former U.S. security envoy to the Middle East James Jones brokered in 2008.

Israel, the Palestinians, Jordan and Egypt have accepted Jones' understandings in 2008. According to these understandings, Israel should have no military control on the Palestinian state when it is declared and that no Israeli soldier should be on the state's eastern borders with Jordan.

The reports said that Washington suggested forming a security committee to discuss the borders and the security issues again. The suggestion comes amid other reports that the United States and Israel are holding undercover discussions about steps to be taken after the Palestinians declare their state to secure Israel's security.

However, Abed Rabbo said all those reports "might be untrue Israeli leaks," stressing that the Palestinians "cannot deal with these reports."

But he that the Palestinians are frustrated from the performance of Obama administration "which looks into the Palestinian issue away from the international unanimous position."

The United States and Israel opposed what they call "unilateral " Palestinian efforts to declare a Palestinian state on the lands that Israel has occupied in 1967.

The Palestinians resorted to this option when U.S.-brokered peace talks collapsed in September, after Israel resumed building settlements in the West Bank.

Israel and America "should recognize the borders of the occupied areas as the borders of the Palestinian state," Abed Rabbo added.