US-Israel meeting scrapped over settlements

A meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the US Middle East envoy was called off because of disagreements over settlement growth, Israeli media reported on Wednesday. Officials close to Netanyahu said he had called off the meeting and denied an Israeli newspaper report that Washington had cancelled it over Israel's refusal to halt "natural growth" in the settlements. "The decision to cancel the meeting ... was taken by the prime minister. We must be sure before such a meeting that professional work has been done on a series of issues," a senior Israeli official told AFP. "There will be a meeting as soon as this work is done." The mass-selling Yediot Aharonot had earlier quoted an unnamed Israeli official as saying Washington issued a "stern" message to Netanyahu to halt all settlement activity on occupied Palestinian land. "Once you've finished the homework we gave you on stopping construction in the settlements, let us know. Until then, there's no point in having (envoy George) Mitchell fly to Paris to meet you," the paper quoted the official as saying. The meeting with Mitchell was to take place in Paris during Netanyahu's first visit to Europe since taking office earlier this year at the head of a hawkish right-wing government. An Israeli official said Mitchell would instead meet Israel's Defence Minister Ehud Barak on Monday in Washington. In recent weeks Washington has ramped up pressure on Netanyahu's government to halt all settlement activity in the occupied West Bank as part of efforts to relaunch the Middle East peace process. The Palestinians have said they will not meet Netanyahu until Israel halts all settlement activity. The presence of some 280,000 Israelis in more than 100 settlements across the territory has been a major obstacle to peace efforts. Netanyahu has vowed not to build new settlements, but said he would allow for "natural growth" within existing settlements, including the main settlement blocs Israel expects to keep in any future peace deal. But US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in May that President Barack Obama had made it clear during Netanyahu's visit to Washington that he wants no "natural growth exceptions" to his call for a settlement freeze. The international community considers all settlements in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, which Israel seized in the 1967 Six Day war, to be illegal.