Paris slams ongoing settlement construction

Tuesday March 11, 2008 06:08 by IMEMC News

France slammed on Monday the ongoing Israeli settlement construction in the occupied West Bank and considered settlement activities as obstacles that are limiting the ability to create a viable Palestinian State. The statement came after Israel resumed the construction of homes in a West Bank settlement.

!-- @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } -->Spokeswoman of the French Foreign Ministry, Pascale Andreani, stated that “France slams the ongoing settlement activities as this issue limits the survival of the future Palestinian State”.

She called on the Israeli government to refrain from any unilateral acts that could harm the final status peace talks and could hinder the peace process.

On Sunday, Israel announced that it resumed the construction of housing units in a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank. This act would limit the possibility of resuming peace talks which were stopped recently by the Palestinian side after Israel carried a large scaled military offensive into Gaza killing more than 124 Palestinians, including women and children.

The United States refrained from slamming the Israeli decision to resume settlement construction and only expressed “concern” over the issue.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, gave the green light for the construction of hundreds of housing units in Givat Zeev settlement, north west of Jerusalem.US State Department spokesperson, Shon McCormack, refused to comment in the issue and stated that would ask the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, if she discussed this issue during last week's phone calls with Israeli officials. It is worth mentioning that the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, arrived in France on Monday and is expected to remain in the country until Friday.

Peres and the Frnech President, Nicolas Sarkozy, will open on Friday a book fair which focuses on Israeli literature. 39 Israeli writers were invited to attend the even, while a number of Arab countries said that they are boycotting the event.

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