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Palestinian leader Abbas now willing to renew peace talks 
DEBKAfile Special Report April 26, 2010, 10:04 PM (GMT+02:00)

Tags:  US-Palestinians   US-Israel   Mahmoud Abbas 

Mahmoud Abbas

Palestinian Authority Chairman, Mahmoud Abbas stated Monday, April 26 that he is willing to go back to negotiations with Israel, without pre-conditions, if the Arab League's monitoring committee session on May 1 approves. "Try me," he said in an exclusive interview with Israel Channel 2 TV's Ehud Yaari.
 DEBKAfile notes that Abbas appears to have changed direction after 15 months of stalling against US efforts to restart the talks on one pretext or another. The US Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, who left the Middle East Friday, April 23, announced he was returning to the region to continue his mission next Tuesday, May 4, which is three days after the Arab League meeting. 
In answer to a question, Abbas said he had nothing against Binyamin Netanyahu and is ready to talk to him. He is Israel's elected leader, said Abbas, and has a parliamentary majority. 
He stressed that certain issues had been agreed and settled in talks with Netanyahu's predecessor, Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni, then foreign minister. One of those issues was security in the areas to be handed over to the Palestinian state. It had been agreed that NATO personnel under US command would be deployed in the West Bank and along theJordan River, he said. 
Settlement blocs and territory swaps would be subject to negotiation between the Palestinians and Israel, said Abbas, and a solution could also be found for the Palestinian refugee problem.
Asked about Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayad's pledge to establish a Palestinian state by 2011, Abbas said clearly: "We are against unilateral steps."
Regarding the future of the Gaza Strip, he said there had been good progress in the quest for reconciliation between his Fatah movement and Hamas.

Last Friday, the Palestinian leader speaking to his Fatah party appealed to President Barack Obama to "Impose a solution" of the Middle East conflict. He rejected out of hand a new Israeli proposal of temporary borders for a Palestinian state on 60 percent of the West Bank.
In the meantime, as DEBKAfile reported, the Obama administration met Israel halfway on its demand for a construction freeze in East Jerusalem, accepting that Israel would quietly suspend building licencses and other permits for just four weeks, giving Mitchell a chance to persuade Abbas to joint US-moderated talks with Israel.

Moscow markets cruise missile launched from a freight container
DEBKAfile Special Report
April 26, 2010, 7:19 PM (GMT+02:00) 

Tags:  Russian Club-K missile 

Russia's Club-K Freight Container cruise missile

This relatively cheap, extra-smart, easy-to-use Club-K Container Missile System, whichMoscow has put on the open market, allows cruise missiles concealed in freight containers to be launched from a prepositioned or moving land or sea platform. It is virtually undetectable by radar until activated. No wonder, Iran andVenezuela were keenly interested when the Club-K was put on the open market at the Defense Services Asia exhibition in Malaysia this week for $15 m.

In Iranian, Syrian or Hizballah hands, it would be a game-changer. 
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Pakistani centrifuges launched Iran's nuclear program 24 years ago
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
April 25, 2010, 4:55 PM (GMT+02:00) 

Tags:  centrifuges   Iran nuclear  Pakistan 

Ex-foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati

Iran introduced its nuclear program much earlier than previously believed. Ex-foreign minister Velayati now discloses that in 1986, he brought the first centrifuges fromPakistan to Iran aboard the private plane of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Revolution or Iran. DEBKA intelligence and counter-terror sources add that the centrifuges came with the first Pakistani technical specifications for building a bomb and designing missiles for their delivery.
 

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Al Qaeda in Yemen, fortified with diverted US funds, strikes British embassy
DEBKAfile Special Report
April 26, 2010, 10:57 AM (GMT+02:00) 

Tags:  Al Qaeda   Britain   US   Yemen 

British embassy, Sanaa

The British embassy in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa shut down Monday, April 26, after an al Qaeda suicide attack on the ambassador's convoy and a clash with gunmen outside the embassy. According to first reports, one person was killed, but Ambassador Tim Torlot is safe.  
DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources report that al Qaeda recently received an extra boost from secretly divertedUS funds which Yemen president Abdullah Ali Salah used  to try and bribe the Islamists to relocate inSomalia - without success.

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Scud ground missiles

Syria has smuggled three consignments of disassembled Scud A ground missile components to the Lebanese Hizballah, DEBKAfilediscloses from Middle East intelligence and military sources. They do not add up to a complete set of parts for an operational Scud missile. However, another five shipments, awaiting handover at Syrian border bases will provide the missing elements for complete weapons.

Tehran urges Syria to hurry up deliveries.

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