EU summons Israeli ambassador over settlement expansion concerns

The European Union has summoned Israel's ambassador to discuss the bloc's concerns over Israeli plans to expand its settlements in the West Bank, an EU foreign affairs spokeswoman said on Wednesday.   

"The Israeli ambassador has been invited by the Executive Secretary General of the EEAS (European External Action Service) to meet to set out the depth of our concerns," she said.   

The EU reaction to the expansion plans would be influenced by "the extent to which Israeli moves represent a strategic threat to the possibility of a contiguous and viable state of Palestine with Jerusalem as a shared capital", she said.

Israel is moving forward with plans for two major settlement projects in east Jerusalem, a spokeswoman said Tuesday, even as a senior Palestinian official warned that his government could pursue war crimes charges if Israel doesn't halt such construction.     

International anger over Israeli settlement construction has snowballed in recent days, following last week's U.N. recognition of a state of Palestine  in lands Israel occupied in 1967  as a non-member observer in the General Assembly.     

Israel retaliated for U.N. recognition of Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem by announcing plans to build 3,000 homes for Jews in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, as well as preparations for construction of an especially sensitive project near Jerusalem, known as E-1.

The Palestinians are condemning Israel for announcing plans for new settlement construction immediately after the U.N. recognized the state of Palestine and are demanding urgent international action to stop what he called "this latest Israeli provocation."     

Palestinian envoy Riyad Mansour said in letters sent late Monday to the secretary-general, Security Council and General Assembly that at the same time that Palestinian leaders reaffirmed their readiness to resume peace negotiations, "Israel continues to flagrantly pursue its illegal policies and practices."     

He appealed to the international community, including the U.N. Security Council, to act urgently to salvage the internationally-backed goal of two states living side by side in peace, which was reaffirmed in last Thursday's General Assembly resolution raising the Palestinians' U.N. status to a nonmember observer state.


REUTERS/AP