PLO Urges Quartet To React To Israel's Settlement Schemes

GAZA (NNN-KUNA) -- The Palestine Liberation Organization called on the Quartet on Friday to hold Israel responsible for failure of the peace process as a result of its settlement policy.

In a statement to KUNA, Dr. Saeb Erekat, the member of Executive Committee of the PLO, said Tel Aviv's declaration of a plan to build more than 2,600 settlement units in the Jerusalem region "affirmed its disregard to the efforts of the Quartet to revive the peace process."

It was second time that Israel approved settlement construction plans since the Quartet declared intention to resume the peace negotiations, he said.

Israel, a few days ago, reacted to the Quartet declaration with the approval of schemes to build 1,100 settlement units in Gilo, Jerusalem, and 2, 600 others south of the occupied city, Erekat added.

The Quartet should take an explicit stand against such a systematic policy by Israel, which has shown determination to torpedo the peace process, he said.

Erekat added that President Mahmoud Abbas, during a meeting with the US envoy, David Hale, and Cathrine Ashton, the top EU foreign affairs official, affirmed the new Israeli schemes constituted reaction to the Quartet declaration to try resume the talks.

He also said that Abbas told Hale and Ashton that the Palestinian authority could not accept the calls for resuming the peace talks in the shadow of such Israeli policies of intransigence. -- NNN-KUNA