Chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qurei said in a meeting held on Monday with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in Jerusalem that the expansion of Jewish settlements is rejected.
Qurei said in a statement published by Palestinian news agency Wafa that a semi-official meeting was held on Monday evening with Livni in Jerusalem, instead of an official preparatory meeting to renew peace talks.
It is the first meeting held between the two officials since President Mahmoud Abbas decided on March 3 to halt the peace talks with Israel following a deadly Israeli military offensive on northern Gaza that left around 130 people dead.
He said the meeting was held upon a Palestinian request to officially protest against Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert's statements, in which he said that building and expanding settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem would continue.
"During the meeting, I expressed to Foreign Minister Livni the extreme Palestinian discontent to Olmert's statements, and we told her that what he said is totally rejected," said Qurei.
He added that "we reiterated to Livni that we totally reject expanding settlements or even building one room on any inch of the Palestinian lands either in the West Bank or in the occupied east Jerusalem."
Israel had recently decided to build more than 700 new housing units into a Jewish settlement between east Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah.
"This is considered a clear breaching to Israel's commitments to the roadmap plan for peace in the Middle East, and a violation of the peace process principles and to what we had agreed upon in Annapolis," said Qurei.
Source:Xinhua
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