Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday he does not want to pull Israeli troops from the Palestinian border.

He said maintaining a "long-term Israeli presence" there would be one of his conditions for allowing the creation of a Palestinian state.
    
Palestinian leaders say only an international force should be part of border security. 

"President Abbas has expressed readiness to discuss with the international community a deployment of international forces on our borders for a certain period of time," Hanan Ashrawi, a former negotiator and member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's executive committee, told Bloomberg News in a phone interview.

"We will never agree to even one single Israeli soldier on the borders of our future Palestinian state," he said.
     
But Netanyahu fears Palestinian terrorists will attack Israel from within the safe haven of a Palestinian state.

"I don't believe that under these circumstances international troops will do the job," Netanyahu said, according to the transcript posted on his office's website. "We live in a very tough neighborhood and the peace will be tested constantly."

"The only force that can be relied on to defend the Jewish people is the Israel Defense Forces," he said.