Ramallah(Antara/Xinhua-OANA) - The fresh Israeli announcement Wednesday of planning to build additional 20,000 housing units in the Israeli settlements outraged the Palestinian leadership, which thought that the direct peace talks with Israel has reached a real deadlock. However, Israel retreated as soon as chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat warned, in press statement to Xinhua, to suspend immediately the peace negotiations with Israel if it doesn 't immediately annul its decision of building more units in the settlements. "President Mahmoud Abbas instructed to the negotiations team to hold immediate contacts with Washington, Russia, China and the European Union to urge them for an immediate intervention," Erekat said, adding "As Israel insists on settlement expansion, it means that it blows up the entire peace process." The veteran negotiator told Xinhua that Israel's decision of expanding settlements "is blowing up the direct peace talks and bring the whole peace process to a deadlock," adding "if the talks stop, our options will be opened and we will never accept to cover settlement by keeping the talks going on." The United States, which sponsors the direct peace talks between the two sides, which were resumed in Washington in late July after it had been suspended for three years, had repeatedly expressed concerns over the new Israeli plans of settlement expansion. Israeli Radio reported earlier on Wednesday that sources in the White House stressed that the U.S. stance concerning the settlements is clear and considers it as "illegal," adding that lunching new plans of expanding settlement "won't help the creation of a proper atmosphere for keeping the peace talks going on." Meanwhile, Israeli Peace Now Movement said in a statement earlier on Wednesday that the crazy increase in settlement building on the Palestinian territories while the two sides are sitting on one negotiations table "is emptying the talks from any meaning and simply makes the talks absurd." In the light of these developments, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu contacted his Israeli minister of housing and construction and asked him to reconsider all the new plans of building thousands of housing units in the Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories.(*) (T.C003/Chaidar)

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