Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat says Israeli plan to build new settlements should be countered by international recognition of Palestinian state.

The chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said on Tuesday that Israel's plan to build new homes in occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank should be countered by international recognition of a Palestinian state.
 
Raising the stakes in the deadlock over stalled peace talks, Erekat said it was clear from the latest announcement of building plans that Israel wants settlements, not peace. "Israeli unilateralism is a call for immediate international recognition of the Palestinian state," he said in a statement.
 
Israel on Monday announced plans to build 1,300 new housing units on occupied land near Jerusalem, and on Tuesday, Haaretz reported that a further 800 units were planned in the big settlement of Ariel in the northern West Bank. The building plans were made public as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in the United States to discuss ways to revive Middle East peace talks that have stalled over the issue of settlement building.

The United States said it was "deeply disappointed" by Monday's news of the housing project which is "counterproductive to our efforts to resume direct negotiations between the parties", State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was expected to raise the issue in a meeting with Netanyahu in New York on Thursday.

"Israel's settlement enterprise ... is nothing but a premeditated process to kill the possibility of an independent Palestinian state," Erekat said.