UN ‘concerned’ over Israel’s settlement expansion plan

UNITED NATIONS - UN chief Ban Ki-moon is ‘deeply concerned’ about Israel’s plan to expand a settlement in the occupied West Bank and renews his call to the Jewish state to freeze all settlement activity, his spokeswoman said Thursday.

“The secretary-general is deeply concerned about the announcement today of the initial approval by the Ministry of Defense of 20 residential units in the Israeli military post of Maskiyot in the West Bank,” Michele Montas told a press briefing.

In a statement, she recalled that Ban had repeatedly stressed that “settlement construction or expansion is contrary to international law and Israel’s commitments under the roadmap and the Annapolis process. “

“The Secretary General urges Israel to heed the call of the (Middle East peace) Quartet to freeze all settlement activity, including natural growth, and to dismantle outposts erected since March 2001,” she added..

“We are currently in the process of constructing 20 housing units in the Jordan Valley settlement of Maskiot,” a senior Israeli defense ministry official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Local authorities in the Jordan Valley on Wednesday published a tender for the construction, he said, but the move still requires the final go-ahead from Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

“The construction still requires the authorization of the defense minister ... there is no reason for him not to give the authorization.”

The new decision would join hundreds of housing units the Israeli government has approved in the West Bank, including annexed Arab east Jerusalem, since the resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians last November as part of the US-sponsored Annapolis process.

But while those units are in large settlement blocs and parts of east Jerusalem that Israel wishes to keep under its control in any peace deal, the Jordan Valley does not fall under such a category.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s spokesman Mark Regev said Israel would stick to its commitment not to expand settlements beyond their existing boundaries.

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