Israeli foreign minister says annexation move unlikely Wednesday

A Palestinian man argues with an Israeli border policewoman during a protest marking the 72nd anniversary of Nakba and against Israeli plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, in the village of Sawiya near Nablus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank 15 May, 2020. Reuters

Israel’s foreign minister said an announcement on the proposed annexation of occupied West Bank land was unlikely on Wednesday, the start-date set by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government for discussing such a move.

“It seems unlikely to me that this will happen today,” Gabi Ashkenazi, a member of the centrist Blue and White party partnered up with Netanyahu’s conservative Likud, told Israel’s Army Radio.

“I reckon there will be nothing today, regarding (the extention of Israeli) sovereignty.”

In a sign of rifts within the coalition over the timing of any unilateral annexation move, which has been fiercely opposed by the Palestinians and some world powers, Ashkenazi referred further questions on the matter by the interviewer to Netanyahu.

The premier, after meeting US envoys on Tuesday to discuss annexation within the framework of president Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan, said such talks would continue for several days - another playing-down of the 1 July start-date. -Collected from "Prothom Alo"