MIDDLE EAST: Israel will not go ahead with a major housing project in its largest West Bank settlement, which has drawn persistent US criticism, vice-premier Ehud Olmert said in an interview published yesterday.
"The state of Israel has committed itself to freeze the building," Mr Olmert told the Jerusalem Post daily.
Israel has plans to build a new neighbourhood of 3,500 housing units that would connect the 30,000-strong settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim, just east of Jerusalem, to the disputed city. The expansion is highly controversial because it would effectively cut off East Jerusalem, where the Palestinians hope to establish their future capital, from the West Bank.
Prime minister Ariel Sharon, who has refrained from pushing the construction project so as not to anger the Americans, has repeatedly said that major settlement blocs, including Ma'aleh Adumim, will remain in Israeli hands after a final deal has been reached with the Palestinians.
And Mr Olmert made it clear that the construction halt was temporary - until Israel had procured American consent. "It is absolutely clear that at a certain point in the future, Israel will create continuity between Jerusalem and Ma'aleh Adumim, and so there is not even an argument that in the end we will have to build the project," he said. "When the conditions are ripe, we will raise the issue with the Americans again."
Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official, said the Palestinian Authority had been told by the US that "they will exert every possible effort to have the Israeli government refrain from any act that will prejudge the outcome of negotiations."