The European Union's Swedish presidency said Tuesday that it was "premature" to recognize a Palestinian state as Israel's prime minister declined a United States request to freeze a project to build dozens of housing units in the an illegally occupied east Jerusalem settlement.
As Palestinian leaders prepared to ask the United Nations Security Council for state recognition, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, told reporters in Brussels: "I don't think we are there yet."
"I would hope that we would be in a position to recognize a Palestinian state but there has to be one first, so I think it is somewhat premature," he said, before chairing talks with his EU counterparts.
Meanwhile Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remained defiant on building illegal settlements in the occupied land in east Jerusalem, which Palestinians hope to make the capital of a future state.
U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell had recently asked the hawkish premier to halt the project in Gilo, saying it risks raising tensions with Palestinians amid floundering efforts by Washington to restart peace negotiations, it said.
But Netanyahu refused, saying that the project did not require government approval and that Gilo was "an integral part of Jerusalem," it said.
Asked to comment on the report, a senior Israeli official would say only that Netanyahu "is ready to show the maximum restraint when it comes to construction in Judeaea and Samaria (West Bank) to help restart (peace) negotiations, but this policy does not apply in Jerusalem, our capital."
No comment was immediately available from the U.S. side.
Gilo lies in the mostly Arab east Jerusalem that Israel captured along with the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed in an illegal move not recognized by the international community.
Israel is defiant and promotes the idea that both halves of the Holy City are its "eternal, indivisible" capital. The Palestinians want to make the eastern part of the city the capital of their promised state.