(Reuters) - The United States wants Israel to stop expanding Jewish settlements without exception, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday, promising that Washington would push this point with its ally.
Palestinian and other Arab officials have long argued that Israel's expansion of settlements on land it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war undermine efforts to negotiate a peace agreement to end the six-decade conflict.
"The president was very clear when Prime Minister Netanyahu was here. He wants to see a stop to settlements -- not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions," Clinton said at a news conference with Egypt's foreign minister.
"We think it is in the best interests of the effort that we are engaged in that settlement expansion cease. That is our position, that is what we have communicated very clearly not only to the Israelis but to the Palestinians and others and we intend to press that point."
