Israel ready for 9-month freeze on outpost expansion - paper
27/08/200913:43
TEL AVIV, August 27 (RIA Novosti) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has offered a nine-month moratorium on Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank, a government source told Haaretz.
The United States had asked Israel to order a one-year moratorium on the building of Jewish settlements in the West Bank to aid the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The White House believes a freeze would encourage Arab countries to move forward with the normalization of ties with Israel.
The new initiative was put forward during Wednesday's meeting in London between the Israeli prime minister and the U.S. envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, the paper said. The U.S. has reportedly backed down on its demand that the settlement freeze also apply to East Jerusalem.
The moratorium would not apply to around 2,500 housing units already under construction in the West Bank, and objects of public infrastructure, such as kindergartens and schools, which are necessary to maintain "normal life" in the settlements.
Israel sees the moratorium as "a confidence-building measure that must be matched by reciprocal steps from the Palestinian Authority and other Arab states," Haaretz said. If it fails, Israel wants the U.S. to guarantee that it will not oppose renewed construction.
Discussions on the initiative are due to continue net week in Washington, at a meeting between Mitchell and two top Israeli officials - attorney Yitzhak Molcho, an envoy for Netanyahu, and Defense Minister Ehud Barak's chief of staff Brig. Gen. Mike Herzog.
Mitchell is due to pay a visit to Israel in mid-September, and Netanyahu could meet with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas at next month's UN General Assembly session in New York. Until recently, Abbas had rejected the possibility of such a meeting unless Israel freezes settlement construction completely.
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