Palestinians flay plan to build 1,300 new homes

Ramallah: The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) on Tuesday denounced the Israeli decision to build 1,300 housing units in occupied East Jerusalem.

Saeb Erekat, who heads the Palestinian negotiating team, said in a statement that the PNA condemned the decision of the Israeli government which clearly has chosen the path of colony activities and abandoned the path of peace.

Erekat said that the announcement came while the Israeli Prime Minister Binjamin Netanyahu is in Washington and that clearly highlights the Israeli choice.

Erekat urged the US and the international community to take fair stand in response to the unilateral Israeli measures and recognise a Palestinian independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Israel is pushing ahead with plans to build 1,300 new apartments for Jewish families in occupied Jerusalem, the Interior Ministry said on Monday.

Interior Ministry spokeswoman Efrat Orbach said plans for some 1,300 Jewish housing units in two neighbourhoods on land Israel seized in a 1967 war had been made public, passing another procedural stage toward eventual construction.

The United States said it was "deeply disappointed" by news of the housing project.

"It is counterproductive to our efforts to resume direct negotiations between the parties," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said, adding that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was expected to bring the matter up in a meeting with Netanyahu in New York today.

At a meeting in New York with former President Bill Clinton, Netanyahu was asked by reporters to comment on the US criticism.

"You know, President Clinton and I have a lot of things to discuss, but this particular issue I'm going to discuss, I'm sure, with Mrs Clinton on Thursday, so you can ask me then," Netanyahu said.

Earlier, Netanyahu held talks at the United Nations with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who the UN press office said "expressed concern at the resumption of colony activity and recent announcements of further colony construction in [occupied] Jerusalem."

Direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians broke down in September almost as soon as they had begun, after Netanyahu rebuffed Palestinian demands to extend a partial freeze on West Bank colony building. An aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ruled out any return to negotiations as long as Israel continued to build and called on the United States to act against the Jewish state so that the talks could restart.

— With inputs from agencies