Israel suggests reciprocal truce: Abbas

[oberliner]

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said on Friday that
Israel had proposed a reciprocal truce to halt Israeli-Palestinian violence.

"The contemplated reciprocal truce is an Israel project, a project presented to us by the Israeli government with a view to establishing a reciprocal and simultaneous truce," Abbas said in an interview on Israeli television.

"We are now working on this basis," he added, saying it would be beneficial to both sides and rejecting suggestions by some in Israel that Palestinian militants would use it as a chance to rearm.

"If Israel had not considered it useful it would not have proposed it," Abbas said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070323/wl_mideast_afp/mideastisrael_070323203000