Israeli FM warns Palestinians not to declare state [View All]

[Scurrilous]

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"Israel's hard-line foreign minister warned Palestinians against plans to unilaterally declare independence next year, saying in an interview Tuesday that such a move could prompt Israel to annex parts of the West Bank and annul past peace agreements.

Avigdor Lieberman also made harsh comments about Turkey, Israel's increasingly alienated ally, saying the Turkish prime minister was coming to resemble Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi.

Lieberman, who heads an ultranationalist party, has become known for a belligerent tone that has earned him critics abroad and inside Israel.

His remarks Tuesday on Palestinian independence took aim at a Palestinian policy that has emerged as U.S. attempts to restart peace talks have stalled.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, whose Western-backed administration has a limited governing role in the Israeli-controlled West Bank, announced plans to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state, possibly as early as the summer of 2011 — even without a peace deal."

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Israel FM insists no settlement freeze in Jerusalem

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"Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman reiterated on Tuesday that there would be no halt to construction in east Jerusalem despite international demands for a complete settlement freeze.

"We cannot freeze construction in Jerusalem, neither in the east nor the west, neither for Arabs nor for Jews, because it would jeopardise our sovereignty as a state in our own capital," he told public radio.

Israel seized mostly Arab east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War and annexed it shortly thereafter in a move not recognised by the international community or the Palestinians, who consider it the capital of their promised state.

Lieberman, the tough-talking head of the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, said international demands that Israel withdraw from the entire West Bank, including east Jerusalem, were unrealistic.

"The international community wants us to go back to the lines of June 1967, which would not end the conflict but move it closer to Tel Aviv," he said."

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