(AP/Washington Post) The outgoing U.S. ambassador to Israel said in an interview broadcast Sunday that President George W. Bush will back a request by Israel to keep larger West Bank settlement areas under its control in a permanent peace agreement with the Palestinians. Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer, who completed his term Friday, cited an April 2004 letter from Bush to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, setting out the U.S. position on settlements. "The policy is exactly what the president said," Kurtzer said. "In the context of a final status agreement, the United States will support the retention by Israel of areas with a high concentration of Israeli population." Kurtzer's language went slightly further than the original Bush letter, which did not speak of Israel retaining territory it captured in the 1967 Middle East war but said only that a return to the prewar borders of 1949 was unlikely.
2005-09-16 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive