Netanyahu apologises to Biden for timing of settlement plans

AFP - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a public apology to the visiting US vice president on Thursday, hoping to defuse a row over settlements that prompted a Palestinian boycott of indirect peace talks.
  
Vice President Joe Biden welcomed Netanyahu's statement but again criticised Israel's decision to approve construction of 1,600 new homes for Jewish settlers in Arab east Jerusalem, announced during his visit this week.
  
Israel's right-wing prime minister, who supports expanding Jewish communities in annexed east Jerusalem, said he had spoken to Biden and "expressed his regret for the unfortunate timing."
  
Biden welcomed Netanyahu's response.
  
"Sometimes only a friend can deliver the hardest truths, and I appreciate ... the response by the prime minister today," Biden said in a speech at Tel Aviv University.
  
He noted that Netanyahu "clarified that the beginning of actual construction on this particular project would likely take several years."
  
"That's significant because it gives negotiators the time to resolve this as well as other outstanding issues," said Biden, while reiterating condemnation of Israel's go-ahead for the settlement construction.
  
Netanyahu called Biden on Thursday morning, "and both agreed the crisis is behind them," an official in the premier's office said.
  
The Palestinians, however, rejected the statement because it only addressed the timing of the project and not its substance.
  
"The continuation of settlements is the error, not the timing of them, because they are always illegal," Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP.
  
Biden said it was crucial that Israel and the Palestinians resume talks soon. "The status quo is not sustainable."
  
But Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said earlier he would not enter into any negotiations with Israel until the Jerusalem settlement project was frozen, while the Arab League withdrew its support for indirect talks.
  
Biden had hoped his visit to the Middle East would boost the chances of indirect talks. Instead he found himself dealing with the fall-out from Israel's decision.
  
Netanyahu also came under fire from a minister of the centre-left Labour party, a key ally in his otherwise right-wing coalition, who warned that the party may quit over the move.
  
"Members of the Labour party have more and more difficulty in taking part in a coalition government that they joined with the purpose of relaunching the peace process with the Palestinians," Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon said.
  
The Palestinians see east Jerusalem as the capital of their promised state.
  
Israel, which seized east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed it in a move not recognised by the international community, considers the city its eternal and indivisible capital.
  
The decision to build the homes in the ultra-Orthodox Ramat Shlomo neighbourhood ignited an international furore, with both the European Union and the United Nations reiterating that all settlements are "illegal."
  
Russia called the move "unacceptable" and Britain said it would "give strength to those who argue that Israel is not serious about peace."
  
US envoy George Mitchell plans to raise the matter when he travels to the region again next week, according to the US state department.
  
Mitchell had helped broker a deal to begin indirect talks. The last round of direct negotiations collapsed when Israel launched a devastating offensive against the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip in December 2008.
  
Biden, who is travelling with his wife Jill, on Thursday did a helicopter tour of Israel with Defence Minister Ehud Barack, before heading to the Jordanian capital Amman for talks with King Abdullah II.