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Palestine’s Abbas Maintains He Rejected Plan to Annex Part of Sinai

November 9, 2015
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (R) meets with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Cairo, January 14, 2015. Photo: Reuters

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday he rejected a plan proposed to him during the rule of ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi to settle Palestinians on 1,000 kilometers of Sinai in Egypt, reported Al-Arabiya Arabic. Speaking to press in Cairo, where he met with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, Abbas said Morsi had urged him to accept the plan to expand the Gaza Strip into Sinai, despite Abbas’ insistence that he “would not accept one centimeter of Egyptian land.” According to Abbas, Hamas, which has exercised de facto rule over Gaza since 2007, conspired with Israeli officials to come up with the plan. He also asserted that Sisi, who was Egypt’s Defense Minister at the time, strongly opposed the plan. This assertion comes in contrast with previous reports that Sisi was the one who offered 1,600 kilometers of Sinai to be annexed to the Gaza Strip. However, Egypt’s Foreign Ministry and an aide to Abbas both slammed these reports as untrue. In September of last year, secretary general of Abbas’ office Tayeb Abdel Rahim told the official WAFA news agency the claims were “fabricated and baseless”. Earlier on…


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