JERUSALEM (AFP) — US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wraps up a Middle East tour on Monday after strongly condemning Jewish settlement activity in the occupied West Bank.
She was holding a one-on-one meeting with Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak where she was also expected to press for the removal of more of over 600 checkpoints and roadblocks scattered across the West Bank.
The two were then to be joined by Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad, who has been heading up efforts to revitalise the West Bank economy and the deployment of newly-trained Palestinian forces.
"We have not made the progress that we would like to in terms of movement and access, removal of barriers," Rice said on Sunday at a press conference with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
"Particularly, I am concerned about the outposts which are, after all, illegal under Israeli law," she added, referring to dozens of wildcat West Bank settlements Israel has pledged to remove under a 2003 roadmap agreement.
On her 17th trip to the region in less than two years, Rice again tried to inject fresh momentum to Middle East peace talks that were relaunched at a US conference in November but have made little visible progress since then.
"It's June. I expect that people are going to work harder and harder," Rice said, adding that Washington still hoped to see a comprehensive resolution to the decades-old conflict by the end of 2008.
She slammed Israel's continuing expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank including annexed east Jerusalem, saying the projects were having a "negative effect on the atmosphere of the negotiations."
Israeli authorities said on Monday that they have approved a plan to build 40,000 new homes in Jerusalem over the next 10 years, including in the annexed Arab eastern sector of the city.
Israel decided last week to build another 1,300 houses for Jewish settlers in east Jerusalem, infuriating the Palestinians who want it as their future capital.
"No party should be taking steps at this point that could prejudice the outcome of the negotiations," Rice said. "The US will not consider these activities to affect any final-status negotiations including final borders."
At the November conference, Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert formally relaunched the peace talks on the basis of the 2003 roadmap, which calls for a halt to all violence and a freeze on settlement construction.
Israel however claims the right to expand settlements in east Jerusalem and the large settlement blocs in the West Bank, which it expects to keep in any future peace agreement.
"The situation in the Middle East, like always, is complicated," Israeli Foreign Minister and chief negotiator Tzipi Livni said on Sunday.
"And while negotiating with the Palestinians, we need to address also difficulties on the ground, especially the situation in the Gaza Strip."
Rice's visit came exactly one year after the Islamist Hamas movement's bloody takeover of Gaza, where Israel is mulling whether to launch a major offensive to halt rocket fire despite Egyptian efforts to forge a truce.
On Monday, the Israeli military said troops had killed or wounded three Palestinian militants who were trying to place explosives at the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel.
The negotiations have also been overshadowed by a political crisis in Israel springing from a probe into Olmert's past financial dealings, threatening his political future and the survival of the fragile ruling coalition.
Rice held a joint meeting Sunday with the heads of the negotiation teams -- former premier Ahmed Qorei for the Palestinians and Livni, who is widely favoured to succeed Olmert in the absence of early elections.
Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
