Steinmeier: Israeli settlements obstruct peace

Germany says a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will not be formulated as long as Tel Aviv continues to erect settlements in the West Bank. "A solution has to be found ... but a solution will not be found as long as the settlements continue to be expanded," the German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told foreign journalists in Berlin on Friday. The German minister however praised the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent 'careful acceptance' of a Palestinian state. He added that Tel Aviv needs guarantees of security from its neighbors, particularly the Palestinians. Earlier in June, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel had said that the ongoing construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank imperils efforts of the two-state solution with the Palestinians. "I think it is now important to get commitments from all sides and that includes the issue of settlement building. I am convinced that there must be a stop to this. Otherwise we will not come to the two-state solution that is urgently needed," Merkel said in a speech to the Bundestag lower house of parliament. Under the 2002 Roadmap for Peace plan brokered by the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, and Russia, Israel has to 'dismantle settlement outposts erected since 2001 and also freeze all settlement activity'. More than 285,000 Israelis currently live in the settlements -- considered by the international community as having been illegally constructed.