Abbas: Israel's settlements expansion may blow up talks

Acting Palestinian Authority chief said Israel’s expansion of settlements could blow up talks between the two sides. Mahmoud Abbas warned on Monday that Tel Aviv’s plan to build new settler units in the occupied Palestinian territories will prove problematic, press tv reported. Israel has recently given the green light to construct 5,000 new settler units in al-Quds (Jerusalem) and the West Bank. Meanwhile Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the Palestinian Authority’s stance over the construction of new settler units, claiming Palestinians were aware that Tel Aviv "will not be subjected to any restrictions concerning settlement." Over half a million Israelis live in more than 120 settler units built since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds in 1967. The existence and continued expansion of the Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, seen as illegal by the United Nations and most countries, is the major obstacle to the peace in the region.