Catherine Ashton Condemns Israel´s Settlement Expansion Programme
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- Published on Friday, 27 April 2012 10:41
PNN
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, made a statement on Wednesday expressing her concern over the Israeli authorities decision to continue planning, building and constructing settlements in the Occupied Palestinian territories.
Ashton stated that she was "extremely concerned about the decision of the Israeli Authorities regarding the status of the settlements of Sansana, Rechelim and Bruchin in the occupied Palestinian territory", calling on the authorities to reverse the decision.
Furthermore Ashton made light of the constant calls for by the EU for Israel to cease settlement activities, which Israel continue to ignore. She expressed her concern about Israel was undermining the EU with their unilateral and provocative actions.
Catherine Ashton was previously criticised by the Israeli media for allegedly making remarks in which she drew a comparison between the children killed in the shooting in Toulouse, France and those in the Gaza strip, at a conference in Brussels.
"And the days when we remember young people who have been killed in all sorts of terrible circumstances - the Belgian children having lost their lives in a terrible tragedy and when we think of what happened in Toulouse today, when we remember what happened in Norway a year ago, when we know what is happening in Syria, when we see what is happening in Gaza and in different parts of the world - we remember young people and children who lose their lives,"
Although under fire for her remarks, Ashton, with support of the EU, remains a fierce critique of Israel´s settlement expansion programme as she said, "Settlements are illegal under international law, an obstacle to peace and threaten the viability of a two-state solution."
