ME peace efforts teetering, warns Palestinian PM
Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad warned on Monday that peace efforts with Israel based on a two-state solution are teetering because of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
"Unfortunately a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders is teetering and risks collapsing under the weight of 170 settlements and nearly half a million settlers," he said at a conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
"Time has become more pressing, as far as such a solution is concerned, with every brick added to the settlements, every new road built for the settlers and every stone lengthening the (separation) wall," he said.
The two-state solution, backed by the international community, entails the creation of an independent, viable Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel.
The current peace talks were relaunched at a US-hosted conference in November 2007, but have made little visible progress since.
They have been further affected by the political crisis in Israel, which is heading for elections early next year after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stepped down amid claims of corruption.
Exasperated by the lack of progress in negotiations, several Palestinian leaders have suggested the two-state scenerio might have to be abandoned. Israel rejects any suggestion that Israelis and Palestinians could share a single state because such a state would no longer be Jewish.
Fayyad stressed that he still hoped an agreement based on the two-state formula could be reached, but only if Israel "changes its behaviour in the field."
He also urged the international community to "play an active role and confront Israel with its responsibilities."
"We want the world to take concrete measures to make it possible to create a Palestinian state. Waving the threat of a condemnation of the settlement activities is absolutely not enough," Fayyad said.
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