Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in an unprecedented public acknowledgment, called continued Israeli construction in West Bank settlements a breach of Israel's obligations under a recently revived peace plan.
The remarks, published on Friday in the Jerusalem Post daily, came just days before US President George W. Bush is to arrive in the region to build on the momentum created at a Middle East peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland.
In a separate interview, Bush urged Israel to uphold its commitment to remove unauthorized settlement outposts in the West Bank.
"The Israeli government announced that it plans to get rid of the unauthorized outposts, and that's what we expect them to do. We expect the Israeli government to honor its commitments," Bush told the daily Yediot Ahronot in an interview published on Friday.
Israel has long maintained it has the right to continue building in existing settlements to account for "natural growth" of the existing population -- something the peace plan explicitly bans. But Olmert acknowledged that Israel was not honoring its commitments -- a significant development because it had never admitted it was violating the "road map" peace plan.
"There is a certain contradiction in this between what we're actually seeing and what we ourselves promised," Olmert said.
"Obligations are not only to be demanded of others, but they must also be honored by ourselves. So there is a certain problem here," he was quoted as saying.
The remarks build on Olmert's recent efforts to defuse friction over construction in disputed territories. Construction plans announced after the US conference have antagonized the Palestinians and disrupted fledgling peace talks, renewed after seven years of simmering violence.
Olmert said, however, that Israel believes a Bush letter to the Israeli government in 2004 "renders flexible to a degree what is written in the road map."
In that letter, Bush wrote that "existing Israeli population centers" should be taken into consideration when the final borders of a Palestinian state are drawn.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat welcomed Olmert's remarks. When both sides admit they are not carrying out their pledges, that "should be the way for both of us to carry out our obligations," Erekat said.
The two sides have agreed that the foundation for any accord would be the road map, backed by the US, the UN, the EU and Russia.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS