Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he planned to impose permanent Israeli borders by 2010 through pullouts from parts of the occupied West Bank, unless Hamas recognised the Jewish state and renounced violence.
In one of two interviews published by Israeli media on Thursday ahead of March 28 elections that his Kadima party is expected to win, Olmert said the controversial security barrier Israel is building in the West Bank would largely follow the final borders.
Olmert said the barrier's final route could change depending on circumstances, the Haaretz newspaper said. Israel officially calls the barrier a security measure while Palestinians dub it a land grab meant to pre-empt any future border negotiations.
In a separate interview with the Jerusalem Post, Olmert said within the next four years he intended to "get to Israel's permanent borders, whereby we will completely separate from the majority of the Palestinian population".
Israel would also build on a tract of land to link Jerusalem to the biggest West Bank Jewish settlement, Maale Adumim, Olmert told Haaretz. Olmert told the Jerusalem Post he would give a Palestinian Authority led by the militant Islamist group Hamas a "reasonable" amount of time to reform, disarm and embrace past interim peace agreements.
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