By Xinhua,
Jerusalem : U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Israel to remove more roadblocks during a meeting with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak Sunday morning.
“Not all roadblocks are created equal,” Rice was quoted by the website of local daily Jerusalem Post as saying, “We don’t want to get into a numbers game where you just remove X number of roadblocks but it’s not improving the lives of the Palestinians. “Palestinians view the barriers as collective punishment and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who is to join Rice in a three-way meeting with Barak later in the morning, said they blight the Palestinian economy.
Rice arrived here on Saturday evening to promote the stalled negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority. As she flew to the region for a two-day visit, Rice told reporters that she planned to review whether Israel had taken steps on the ground to make life easier for Palestinians as she urged Israel not to undercut Palestinian security forces as they deploy in the West Bank and questioned if its promises to remove roadblocks had been kept.
On Sunday evening, Rice is scheduled to hold another three-way meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Tizpi Livni and chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qurei to discuss the disagreements between Israel and the PNA on the core issues, including Jerusalem, the refugees and the permanent borders of a future Palestinian state.