(MENAFN - Jordan Times) The UK government welcomes Jordan's efforts to rekindle negotiations to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Rosemary Davis, Middle East and North Africa spokesperson for the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, said on Wednesday.
Davis, who is in the Kingdom to attend meetings of the deputy heads of mission at British embassies in the region, said the UK hoped that the deal reached earlier this week that ended a hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners would bridge the trust gap between the two sides and lead to more constructive steps towards a peaceful solution to the conflict.
"The UK supports the two-state solution on the basis of the 1967 borders and East Jerusalem as the capital of an independent Palestinian state, and we believe that the Israeli settlements and their recent plans to build more settlement units inside the Palestinian territories are illegal and harmful to the efforts exerted by all concerned parties to push forward the negotiations," she said, urging the Israeli government to cancel its settlement construction plans.
The British government calls on all parties to come back to the negotiating table as the only means to settle all outstanding issues, she added.
Regarding the situation in Syria, Davis stressed that the UK, as part of the international community, hopes to see a diplomatic and peaceful end to the violence, adding that the Kofi Annan plan is the last opportunity for the Syrian regime to end its aggression against innocent civilians.
"The UK, as well as the international community, will not wait forever. If the plan proposed by the UN's envoy to Syria fails then we will go back to the UN Security Council to push for the endorsement of a resolution against the Syrian regime to force Assad to end the violence," she said.
Moreover, the spokesperson said the UK did not see the new political actors emerging from the Arab Spring as threats, adding that Britain is a democratic country and will always respect people's choices as long as they are expressed in a free, transparent and democratic manner.
"We have no problem with working with any group, whether Islamic groups or others, as long as they respect human rights and abide by the international conventions and covenants related to humans rights and the rights of minority groups," she concluded.
