Last update - 00:00 11/12/2007
Palestinian negotiators to urge settlement freeze during talks
By Barak Ravid and Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondents and Reuters
Palestinians will attend peace talks this week despite a plan by Israel to build new homes in East Jerusalem, but will focus on demanding a settlement freeze, senior Palestinian officials said on Tuesday.
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are due to meet on Wednesday two weeks after their leaders relaunched long-stalled peace talks at a U.S.-hosted conference in Annapolis, Maryland.
Some Palestinian leaders had proposed boycotting Wednesday's meeting after Israel issued a tender for 307 new homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa.
Israel, which pledged at Annapolis to end settlement activity, does not consider Har Homa to be on Palestinian land. But the project drew Palestinian outrage and rare U.S. censure. The United Nations, European Union and Arab states have all criticized the plan.
The Palestinians consider any construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to be settlement activity. Israel says the settlement freeze does not apply to Jerusalem, which it annexed after capturing it in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Palestinian leaders said on Tuesday they decided to attend the meeting but insist Israel freeze settlement activity.
"We will go to the negotiations... but we will confine our discussions to the settlements issue and to the formation of negotiating committees that will discuss all final status issues including Jerusalem and settlements," a senior negotiator told reporters.
Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal on Tuesday condemned Israel's plan to build 307 homes in Har Homa, saying "the kingdom strongly condemns Israel's decision to expand settlement building in East Jerusalem, which contradicts the bases and principles of the Annapolis peace conference."
"We stressed the importance of standing up against settlement activity which empties the peace process of any meaning," he continued.
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