The US ambassador to Israel has said Israel has the right to annex at least “some” of the occupied West Bank, in comments likely to deepen Palestinian opposition to a long-awaited US peace plan.

In the interview published by the New York Times on Saturday, Friedman said that some degree of annexation of the West Bank would be legitimate. “Under certain circumstances, I think Israel has the right to retain some, but unlikely all, of the West Bank,” he said.

Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat has said any such policy would be tantamount to “US complicity with Israeli colonial plans.”

The establishment of a Palestinian State in occupied Palestinian territories, including the West Bank, that Israel seized in the Six-Day War of 1967, has been the focus of all past Middle East peace plans.

*This story was edited by Ahram Online