Israel settlements: An excavator works near settlements under construction in the West Bank of Beitar Ilit, near Bethlehem March 8, 2010. (Photo: Reuters)
EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton complained on Wednesday about the "implications" of an Israeli decision to put out to tender new housing units in an East Jerusalem settlement she considers illegal.
Ashton's statement was published one week after Israel's foreign ministry condemned a European Union decision to effectively label parts of an Israeli town as a settlement, in a new list of locales not entitled to European tariff exemptions.
"The High Representative is seriously concerned about the implications of the recent decision by the Israeli authorities to publish a tender for 130 additional housing units in the settlement of Har Homa across the Green Line in East Jerusalem," the latest statement read, referring to a 1949 armistice divide.
"The High Representative has already expressed her profound disappointment concerning the Har Homa plan approved in August 2011.
"Settlements are illegal under international law and threaten to make a two-state solution impossible," she added, recalling the EU position that Israel must "immediately end all settlement activities in the West Bank, including in East Jerusalem."
The EU specifically prohibits members from applying a tariff exemption granted to Israel, to Israeli products manufactured inside the Arab "territories brought under Israeli administration since June 1967," including the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights.
In the list published last week, the EU designated parts of the city known as Modiin-Maccabim-Reut, which lies half-way between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, as outside Israel for the purposes of a tariff exemption programme.
The three postcodes included in the list fall in an area that is beyond the Green Line, inside a narrow ribbon designated as no-man's land.
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