OPT: End all settlement-building, G8 ministers urge Israel

Trieste, Italy_(dpa) _ Israel should end all settlement-building in Palestinian territory, including for population expansion in current settlements, the foreign ministers of the world's eight leading industrialized nations said Friday.

In a joint statement, the G8 foreign ministers called for "a freeze in settlement activity (as well as their 'natural growth')" and repeated their "full support for the two-state solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Their statement, agreed at talks in the Italian port of Trieste, also urged Palestinians to agree to "an unequivocal end to violence and terrorism (and) an end to arms smuggling."

The statement came some two weeks after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the first time gave guarded backing to the idea of a separate Palestinian state.

Western leaders hailed that as a first step towards reviving the peace process.

Netanyahu's insistence that Israel can build within existing settlements is a major issue between Jerusalem and Washington and with the tensions still unresolved, a meeting between the Israeli Prime Minister and US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, originally scheduled for Thursday, was called off.

The US did, however welcome Thursday Israel's decision to ease the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank, including removing roadblocks and to keep its forces out of four West Bank cities - Ramallah, Kalkilya, Bethlehem and Jericho - on a one-week trial basis to allow Palestinian security forces to operate in them.

The G8 statement came just ahead of the first formal meeting of the "Quartet" of Middle East peace negotiators - the European Union, Russia, the United States and the United Nations - since the inauguration of US President Barack Obama.

That meeting was also to be held in Trieste.

Earlier on Friday, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini hailed the new unity between Obama's administration and the EU on the Middle East peace process, saying that the two powers were closer together than ever before on the issue.

The G8 is made up of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the US. Italy currently holds its rotating presidency. dpa bn jab mga jbl