Egypt backs Palestinian demand for settlement freeze

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Sunday said Cairo “understood” the Palestinian refusal to resume talks with Israel before a settlement freeze in the territories is applied.

Aboul Gheit made the remarks at a joint news conference with Jordanian counterpart Nasser Judeh after a surprise visit to Cairo by Jordan’s King Abdullah II for talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

The meeting came a day after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressed for a swift resumption of peace negotiations, despite the Palestinian insistence that Israel must first halt its settlement activity.

“It is not reasonable or acceptable to conduct negotiations with the continuation of settlements,” Aboul Gheit said.

The United States, which had backed Palestinian demands for a settlement freeze only a few months ago, must provide “guarantees... about settlements, east Jerusalem and the peace effort in general,” he said.

“The peace efforts are facing a real problem which is essentially due to the fact that the Israelis are determined not to respect the (Middle East) ‘roadmap’ which calls for a total halt to settlements,” Aboul Gheit added.

Judeh said he “agreed” with his Egyptian counterpart about the difficulties facing efforts to revive the negotiations.

“There is still a chance to achieve peace,” Judeh said. “But there are still difficulties and obstacles in surpassing the dispute between the Israeli and the Palestinian sides.”

“In the future, none of us will be able to assume the responsibility of having lost the opportunity of making peace efforts succeed,” Judeh added.

During talks Saturday with Clinton in Abu Dhabi, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas insisted on a complete Israeli freeze on settlement activity before the resumption of talks with Israel.

But later in Israel, Clinton said talks must resume “as soon as possible” and praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stance on the thorny issue as “unprecedented.”