Israel must call W.Bank building freeze now: Qurei
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - The chief Palestinian peace negotiator with Israel said on Friday the Jewish state must call a halt to all settlement building before final status talks can continue in earnest next week.
The issue of Israeli settlement building in the Jerusalem area has clouded renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks launched after a U.S.-sponsored international conference in Annapolis, Maryland last month.
The first round of talks following Annapolis opened in discord in Jerusalem last week after Palestinians demanded Israel drop plans to build homes at a settlement near Jerusalem.
"The Palestinian side wants a clear-cut answer on Israel's readiness to immediately halt all settlement activity in the Palestinian areas, including in Jerusalem, before starting final status talks," negotiator Ahmed Qurei said in a statement.
He added that his negotiating team was awaiting an answer during the meeting scheduled for Monday and if not satisfied with the response, they would take it up with U.S. President George W. Bush during his visit to the region next month.
Last week Israel said it would build some 300 homes in an existing settlement near Jerusalem on land it annexed from the West Bank after occupying the territory in 1967.
It says the settlement at Har Homa, known as Abu Ghneim by Arabs, falls outside commitments in Bush's 2003 road map peace plan because it is part of the Jewish state.
Israel annexed Arab East Jerusalem after the 1967 Middle East war in a move that has not won international recognition. It regards all of Jerusalem as its capital.
The Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of the state they hope to create in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Israel's plan drew rare criticism from the United States and the European Union and raised fears of widening the rift in the first peace talks in seven years.
Israeli construction at the same site derailed a previous round of peace talks in 1997.
On Thursday Israel's Housing Ministry said it had backed away from a preliminary plan to build new homes at another site in the occupied West Bank near Jerusalem which Israel refers to as Atarot and the Palestinians call Qalandia.
(Reporting by Mohammed Assadi; Writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Richard Williams)
