Tornado Alley (PROG)

[StephanieVanbryce]

Bibi tells Hillary that (purported) settlement freeze is over in 30 days

Netanyahu told Clinton no change on settlement issue

– Wed Sep 1, 11:39 am ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said there is no change in Israel's position to end a moratorium on settlement construction later this month, but urged Palestinians not to abandon fresh peace talks over the issue.

Netanyahu told US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a meeting late Tuesday that there was "no change to the cabinet decision to end the (partial construction freeze) at the end of September 2010," his office said.

"It is impossible to take the issue of settlements in the West Bank, which is an issue for the permanent agreement and deal with it separately at the beginning of the direct talks," a statement from his office quoted Netanyahu as telling Clinton during their meeting Tuesday.

The Palestinians say that a renewal of settlement activities after September 26, when a 10-month partial moratorium expires, would end the negotiations.

"Israel does not condition its participation in the talks on the Palestinian Authority regaining control of the Gaza Strip or rehabilitating West Bank refugee camps to find a solution for refugees outside Israel's borders," he said, referring to other thorny issues at the heart of the talks.

"We are not looking for excuses to stop the negotiations. The opposite, we came here to find a real solution without preconditions," the statement quoted him as saying.

"So, there is no reason to get up and abandon the talks over an issue that can be raised in negotiations and a solution found in the framework of a permanent agreement," he said.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said in comments published Wednesday that Israel must extend a settlement moratorium for negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders to succeed.

Mubarak, who is in Washington to attend the launch of direct talks between Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Thursday, also called for international peacekeepers in a future Palestinian state.

"A complete halt to Israel's settlement expansion in the West Bank and east Jerusalem is critical if the negotiations are to succeed, starting with an extension of Israel's moratorium on settlement-building, which expires this month," he wrote in the Wednesday edition of the New York Times.

Thursday's talks will be the first direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians since Abbas suspended talks in December 2008 after Israel launched an offensive in Gaza to end rocket fire.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100901/wl_afp/israelpalestinianspeacesettlers