PNA unaware of U.S. efforts to put talks on track

The Palestinian National Authority does not see any U.S. efforts to revive direct peace talks with Israel, a Palestinian official said Thursday.

The official, Yasser Abed Rabbo, was commenting on remarks by U. S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Washington was exerting efforts to put the negotiations back on the track.

The U.S. administration, which brokered the direct talks between the Palestinians and Israelis in September, "did not carry out any effort at least with us," Abed Rabbo told Voice of Palestine radio.

The talks from Sept. 2 stopped shortly due to controversies over Jewish settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories. Abed Rabbo said the Americans might be talking with Israel to convince it to restrict settlement activities in the West Bank.

The 10-month moratorium on settlement, which expired on Sept. 26, did not take effect in Jerusalem. With the expiration, Israel started building about 850 housing units in settlements, 310 of them in East Jerusalem, according to chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.

Source: Xinhua