United Nations Envoy, Robert Serry, stated that with its new decision to build 1100 new settlement units in occupied East Jerusalem, Israel sends a wrong signal amidst the international efforts to ensure the resumption of the stalled peace talks.Serry said that he is concerned regarding the Israeli approval of the new units, and that this decision ignores the Friday call of the Quartet for both sides to refrain from conducting any provocative acts.
“This decision send a wrong signal, especially amidst current sensitive time”, Serry added.
The UN official also stated that “settlement activities contradict with the Road Map Peace Plan, the International Law, and undermine the efforts that aim at resuming peace talks and reaching a two-state solution to the conflict.
The United States slammed the new decision but also claimed that Israel is showing “flexibility” in responding to the Quartet’s initiative for the resumption of peace talks.
Responding to the Israeli decision, Palestinian Prime Minister, Dr. Salaam Fayyad, stated that Netanyahu talks about “Israel’s readiness to hold talks with no preconditions, then approves more settlement construction and expansion”.
“The new Israeli decision to build the 1100 units is by itself a precondition and a unilateral move by Israel”, Dr. Fayyad added, “Nothing can be more unilateral than a decision to build this large number of settlement units on Palestinian lands”.
