Israeli President Shimon Peres on Sunday sought to reassure the international community that the incoming cabinet of hawkish Benjamin Netanyahu will continue peace negotiations with Palestinians.
"The new government is bound by the decisions of the preceding one," Peres told public radio on the eve of his visit to the Czech Republic, which as current president of the European Union has warned Israel of "consequences" if its new cabinet did not accept the principle of a Palestinian state.
"There will be a continuity and the continuation of peace negotiations," the president said.
"The government that will be formed will respect the engagements undertaken by the preceding cabinet," he said, adding that this also applied to ongoing talks over a prisoner swap with Hamas.
Peres — Israel's veteran statesman and a Nobel peace laureate — spoke a day before he was to travel to Prague for a one-day visit.
The Czech Republic currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union and on Friday it warned of "consequences" if the government of Netanyahu did not accept the principle of a two-state solution of the Middle East conflict.
"Relations would become very difficult indeed," said Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg.
"At one of our next ministerial meetings we would have to discuss what consequences the EU would draw from that," he told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting with his European Union counterparts at Hluboka castle in the southern Czech Republic.
Netanyahu opposes the creation of a Palestinian state for the moment, saying economic conditions in the occupied West Bank must be improved before negotiations take place on other issues.
Last week he vowed that he would pursue peace talks with the Palestinians.
"Peace… is a common and enduring goal for all Israelis and Israeli governments, mine included. This means I will negotiate with the Palestinian Authority for peace," he told a Jerusalem conference on Wednesday.
"I think that the Palestinians should understand that they have in our government a partner for peace, for security, for the rapid development of the Palestinian economy," he said.
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