Abbas: East Jerusalem the only capital of Palestinian state
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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stressed Thursday that East Jerusalem will be the capital for the future Palestinian state.
"Today, we are celebrating Jerusalem as the Capital of Arab Culture and no one can vie with us there. Jerusalem is ours and will remain for us and would remain the capital of the Palestinian state," Abbas said.
He made the remarks during a festival in Nablus that marked the end of a series of activities celebrating Arab selection of Jerusalem as the rotating Capital of Arab Culture for the year 2009.
Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), also attended the ceremonies in al-Najjah University in Nablus.
Meanwhile, Israeli police dispersed an assembly by Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem and international activists who gathered in East Jerusalem to celebrate the end of the cultural activities.
Witnesses said the policemen beat the participants with sticks and arrested several attendants, including Omar Shebley, an official from President Abbas's secular Fatah movement.
Israel considers Jerusalem, including its eastern part which it occupied in 1967, as the only and unified capital of the Jewish state, while the Palestinians insist East Jerusalem is their future capital.
Last week, the European Union called on Israel and the Palestinians to negotiate on Jerusalem as a future capital of two states.
Due to settlement buildings in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) have stopped for almost a year.
