EU calls on Israel to resume peace talks immediately
Posted: 13 March 2010 2051 hrs

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SAARISELKA, Finland: The European Union on Saturday urged Israel to urgently resume peace talks with the Palestinians, warning that reconciliation efforts could fail definitively if the current impasse continues.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who is leaving for a tour of the Middle East from Sunday, said she was "very concerned" about this week's announcement of plans to build new settler homes in east Jerusalem.

"I'm very concerned, I'm concerned that Israeli announced this just as the proximity talks were beginning" between Israelis and the Palestinians, she told journalists on the side lines of a meeting with several European foreign ministers in Saariselka, in northern Finland.

Ashton called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "to demonstrate leadership."

"We need a negotiated peace settlement, it needs to happen quickly and now," she said.

Spain, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU, shared her concern.

"Until now, it is not too late, but if we wait for more than two years it will be too late," Spain's Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said, warning that there would be no more land left to negotiate and that it would be extremely difficult to fix borders between Israel and a Palestinian state.

He also warned that "the Palestinian moderate leadership would not be able to maintain themselves as a peaceful partner, so the time is for urgency, for moving forward."

- AFP/sc