John Kerry: US considers Israeli settlements to be 'illegal'

John Kerry: US considers Israeli settlements to be 'illegal'(Jpost).

BETHLEHEM - US Secretary of State John Kerry urged Israel on Wednesday to limit settlement building, an issue that is weighing on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Friction over the talks has risen this past week on the back of Israeli plans, announced in tandem with its release of 26 Palestinian prisoners, for some 3,500 new homes for settlers in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

"Let me emphasize at this point the position of the United States of America on the settlements is that we consider them... to be illegitimate," Kerry said after discussions with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Kerry made the comments in responding to Palestinian frustration over Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and stressed that "at no time" did the Palestinians agree to accept the settlements as a part of a negotiated peace accord.

Kerry, faced with grim Israeli and Palestinian assessments of progress in peace talks, said on Wednesday that Washington was not giving up on a deal.

"As in any negotiation there will be moments of up and moments of down, and it goes back and forth," Kerry said in Bethlehem, in the West Bank, where he met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

"But I can tell you that President Obama and I are determined, and neither of us will stop in our efforts to pursue the possibility (of peace)," he said.Hmmm......Israel's 'Staunchest allies'.Read the full story here.