DHAKA: Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has said an Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territory should take place within a three-year period under any final Middle East peace deal.

His remarks came as an April deadline loomed for faltering US-backed peace talks, which have been in deadlock over the issue of future security arrangements and other core disputes.

Hawkish Israeli cabinet ministers, meanwhile, spoke out against making concessions to the Palestinians, highlighting seemingly irreconcilable differences that would need to be overcome for a lasting peace agreement.

‘Those who are proposing 10 to 15 years [before a withdrawal] do not want to withdraw at all,’ Abbas said in an interview screened on Tuesday at the annual conference of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) taking place in Tel Aviv.

‘We say that in a reasonable time frame, no longer than three years, Israel can withdraw gradually,’ he said, reports gulfnews.com.

BDST: 1444 HRS, JAN 29, 2014