US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice criticised on Friday an Israeli decision to expand a Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem. Referring to last week's Annapolis Middle East peace conference, Rice told a press conference in Brussels, "I made it clear that we are in a time when the goal is to build maximum confidence with the parties.
"This is not going to build that confidence." On Tuesday Israel said it had invited bids to build more than 300 new housing units in Har Homa, a settlement in annexed east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of their future state.
The Palestine Liberation Organisation blasted the expansion project as a "serious violation" and called on the United States and the UN Security Council to put pressure on Israel.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon also said the move was "not helpful" so soon after Annapolis, and he would discuss the matter with his partners in the diplomatic Quartet for Middle East peace.
Ban's Quartet partners are Rice, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the European Union's foreign policy chief Javier Solana. Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed in Annapolis to revive the frozen Middle East peace process and set the goal of a peace deal and a new Palestinian state by the end of 2008.
Israel does not consider construction in east Jerusalem - which it captured in the 1967 Six-Day war - as settlement growth because it annexed the Arab part of the Holy City shortly after the conflict. Rice was speaking Friday after a Nato foreign ministers' conference at which Lavrov was also present.
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