This is a blow to the US, European, Egyptian, Jordanian, and Russian efforts

Ahmed Korei

The Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Ahmed Korei, said the construction plans ran counter to the aim of ending clashes with Israeli forces.

"This is a blow to the US, European, Egyptian, Jordanian, and Russian efforts, which seek to get the peace process out of the impasse it is experiencing... and to stop the aggression being mounted on the Palestinian people," said Mr Korei, also known as Abu Ala.

"Where can we see credibility and seriousness in the effort to achieve an understanding that could bring the peace process back on track?" he said on Palestinian radio.

"We have seen no proof of a commitment by the Sharon government to bring the process back on track on the basis of signed accords," he said.

Israeli equivocation

Mr Korei accused the Israelis of equivocation over acceptance of the Mitchell Report recommendations, which include a freeze on settlement.

"Our view is that the region can never be calm unless Israel stops building settlements and announces that it will really withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories. This is still far off

Ahmed Adb-al-Rahman

"As a matter of fact, we have not thus far received anything, either from the Israelis or the US envoy, confirming that the Israeli Government has really accepted the Mitchell Committee report or the Egyptian-Jordanian initiative," Mr Korei added.

A senior cabinet official, Ahmed Abdel Rahman, told Egyptian radio that the settlement issue was key to ending the violence.

"Our view is that the region can never be calm unless Israel stops building settlements and announces that it will really withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories. This is still far off," Mr Abdel Rahman said.

Nor could the US be regarded as an "honest broker" while the Israelis were using US-supplied Apache helicopters and F-16 aircraft to attack Palestinian targets.

"It also seems to me that this US envoy has been sent here to put out the fire but not to deal with the underlying causes of the conflict," he said.

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.