Renewed Settlement Freeze Talks Reach Dead End

By Barak Ravid and Natasha Mozgovaya (Haaretz) December 7, 2010

Negotiations between Israel and the U.S. government regarding Israel’s renewal of a moratorium on West Bank settlement construction in exchange for an American letter of guarantees have failed, according to a senior Israeli official.

The official said that the Obama administration and the Israeli government will announce Tuesday that the talks between the two countries have reached a dead end, and that they will try to find new ways to advance the Middle East peace process. Netanyahu, Abbas, Obama

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. President Barack Obama, and PA President Mahmoud Abbas. Photo by: Bloomberg

Earlier on Tuesday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that contacts with the United States over a renewed moratorium on West Bank construction had been frozen in the wake of the WikiLeaks crisis and the tensions between North and South Korea.

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