Merkel chides Netanyahu over Jerusalem housing plans
By JPOST.COM STAFF
LAST UPDATED: 09/30/2011 20:19
German chancellor tells PM housing program raises doubts about Israel's willingness to return to peace talks with Palestinians.
Netanyahu Merkel Photo: REUTERS
German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Friday that plans for new housing units
in east Jerusalem raised doubts that his government is interested in
starting serious negotiations with the Palestinian leadership.
Her spokesman said it was up to Netanyahu to dispel German doubts as to Israel's willingness to engage the Palestinians.
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She
reiterated to Netanyahu in the language of a Quartet of Middle East
mediators statement which called on both sides to refrain from making
"provocative actions."
Leaders across Europe have been highly critical of Israel's decision to continue development in east Jerusalem.
EU Foreign Affairs chief Catherine Ashton condemned the Gilo plan, calling the program "provocative" and urging Israel to "reverse" its decision to build 1,100 new homes over the Green Line.
Netanyahu rejected European and American complaints over the construction in Gilo, saying "Gilo is not a settlement nor an outpost."
"It is a neighborhood in the very heart of Jerusalem, about five minutes from the center of town."
In
every peace plan on the table in the past 18 years, Gilo "stays part of
Jerusalem and therefore this planning decision in no way contradicts"
the current Israel government's desire for peace based on two states for
the two peoples, he added.
Palestinian Authority spokesman Nabil Abu Radina told Ma'an News Agency
that the housing plans for the east Jerusalem neighborhood was a unilateral effort on the part of the Israeli
government to undermine Palestinian efforts to create a state with east
Jerusalem as its capital.