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Netanyahu: Could seek interim deal

JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that if negotiations did not resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he could seek an interim accord instead of the comprehensive deal the United States wants. Palestinians reject that idea.

JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that if negotiations did not resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he could seek an interim accord instead of the comprehensive deal the United States wants. Palestinians reject that idea.

In an interview with Israeli Channel 10 TV, Netanyahu said that if negotiations bogged down on major issues that have stymied peace efforts for years, he could seek a short-term deal.

"It could be we hit a wall - a wall on the topic of Jerusalem, maybe a wall on the subject of [Palestinian] refugees - it could be that then the result will be an interim agreement," he said.

Netanyahu said he would not divide Jerusalem and would insist on an Israeli military presence in the Jordan River valley, the eastern edge of the West Bank - ideas also rejected by the Palestinians.

Israel fears that extremists could take over the West Bank if Israel withdraws, just as the violent Islamic Hamas overran the Gaza Strip two years after Israel's 2005 pullout from that territory.

On Sunday, Israel's hard-line foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, floated a similar proposal of a long-term interim accord with the Palestinians, but with a different emphasis. He said that the peace talks could not succeed and that Israel should not negotiate a peace treaty with the West Bank regime of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the idea of an interim agreement was "a nonstarter and will not fly."

"The time is for the decisions on the permanent-status issues," he said.

The Palestinian Authority was set up on the basis of an interim peace agreement in 1994. Incremental peacemaking broke down over mutual mistrust and accusations by both sides of violations.

U.S.-backed talks broke down in September, only weeks after starting, over the issue of Israel settlement construction. Israel had a partial construction freeze in effect for 10 months but declined to renew it. The Palestinians refuse to negotiate while Israel builds on lands the Palestinians want for a future state.

The Palestinian seek a state in the West Bank and Gaza with a capital in East Jerusalem. Years of peace talks have failed over key issues such as the status of East Jerusalem - with its sites holy to Christians, Jews, and Muslims - and the fate of Palestinians displaced during the war surrounding Israel's creation, and their millions of descendants.