January 05, 2008	Saturday	Zilhaj 25, 1428

JERUSALEM, Jan 4: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made the unprecedented acknowledgement on Friday that by continuing to build settlements in West Bank Israel wasn’t living up to its end of a recently revived peace plan.

Olmert’s remarks, published on Friday in the Jerusalem Post daily, came just days before US President George W. Bush arrives in the region to prod Israel and the Palestinians toward a final peace accord by the end of 2008.

Any agreement is to be based on the internationally backed “road map” peace plan, which was dusted off ahead of the recent Mideast peace summit in Annapolis, Maryland, where Israel and the Palestinians officially re-launched talks after seven years of violence.

The road map foundered shortly after it was presented in 2003 because neither side met initial obligations: Israel did not halt West Bank settlement construction and the Palestinians did not crack down on militants.

Israel has long maintained that it has the right to continue building in existing settlements to account for ill-defined “natural growth” of the existing settler population – something the “road map” explicitly bans. But in his interview with The Jerusalem Post, Olmert acknowledged that Israel wasn’t honouring its commitments.

“There is a certain contradiction in this between what we’re actually seeing and what we ourselves promised,” Olmert said.

“Obligations are not only to be demanded of others, but they must also be honoured by ourselves. So there is a certain problem here,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.

Olmert added, however, that Israel believes a Bush letter to the Israeli government in 2004 “renders flexible to a degree what is written in the road map”.

In that letter, Bush wrote that “existing Israeli population centres” should be taken into consideration when the final borders of a Palestinian state are set down. Israel takes this to mean it will be able to retain major West Bank settlement blocs, where much of the controversial construction is going on.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat welcomed Olmert’s remarks. When both sides admit they aren’t carrying out all their obligations, that “should be the way for both of us to carry out our obligations”, Erekat said.

In related news, one of Olmert’s confidant’s, Vice Premier Haim Ramon, said on Friday that Israel might begin dismantling about two dozen unauthorised settlement outposts in the near future – another road map obligation.

“I hope and also believe that in the near future, during the US president’s visit to Israel and afterwards, real steps will be taken to remove those outposts,” Ramon told Israel Radio.—AP