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UK summons Israel ambassador over settlements | UK summons Israel ambassador over settlements |
(35 minutes later) | |
The UK has summoned Israel's ambassador in London over the plans to expand settlement building in the occupied Palestinian territories. | The UK has summoned Israel's ambassador in London over the plans to expand settlement building in the occupied Palestinian territories. |
The Foreign Office warned of a "strong reaction", but dismissed reports that the British ambassador in Tel Aviv could be withdrawn, as "speculation". | |
Israel authorised 3,000 additional housing units a day after the UN voted to upgrade Palestinian status. | Israel authorised 3,000 additional housing units a day after the UN voted to upgrade Palestinian status. |
The UN expressed "disappointment", but Israel has vowed to continue building. | |
The country's ambassador to London, Daniel Taub, has been has been called to the Foreign Office for a meeting with Alistair Burt minister for the Middle East. | |
'Reconsider' | |
The government said Mr Burt would "set out the depth of the UK's concern about decisions concerning all settlement building". | |
A Foreign Office spokesman said: "The Foreign Secretary [William Hague] has consistently made it very clear that settlement building, such as the recent Israeli government decision to build 3,000 new housing units, threatens the two-state solution and makes progress through negotiations harder to achieve. | |
"We have called on the Israeli government to reconsider. We have told the Israeli government that if they go ahead with their decision, then there will be a strong reaction." | "We have called on the Israeli government to reconsider. We have told the Israeli government that if they go ahead with their decision, then there will be a strong reaction." |
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Palestinians in East Jerusalem could be completely cut off from the rest of the West Bank by the proposed development. | |
But, at a meeting on Sunday of the Israeli cabinet, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the Palestinian campaign at the UN as a "gross violation" of previous agreements with Israel. | |
He brushed off international criticism of Israel's settlement plans, saying: "We will carry on building in Jerusalem and in all the places that are on the map of Israel's strategic interests." | |
Two decades of on-off negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority have failed to produce a permanent settlement, with the latest round of direct negotiations breaking down in 2010. |