Bibi offers to resume talks over settlements

Jerusalem, May 26: Prime Minister Benj- amin Netanyahu has proposed resuming peace negotiations with the Palestinians but with the initial focus on identifying those Jewish settlements that Israel would keep and be allowed to expand, an Israeli official said on Tuesday.

Peace talks collapsed in April 2014 over Israeli settlement- building in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas Palestinians seek for a state, and after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas angered Israel by reaching a unity deal with the Islamist group Hamas in Gaza.

Asked about Mr Netanyahu’s position, a spokesman for Mr Abbas said settlement activity had to stop altogether before peace talks resu- me and that all core issu- es of the conflict with Isr- ael needed to be addres- sed simultaneously. In a meeting in Jerusalem on May 20, Mr Netanyahu told Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief, that some of the land Israel captured in a 1967 war would remain in its hands while other parts would be left under Palestinian control, the Israeli official said. “Therefore negotiations should be resumed in order to define those areas in which we can build,” the official said, quoting Mr Netanyahu.