Britain "reluctant" about Israel's West Bank plan

LONDON, June 13 (Reuters) Britain would be reluctant to see Israel implement a plan to set its borders unilaterally, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett today said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met Britain's Tony Blair in London yesterday to promote his ''realignment plan'' under which dozens of Jewish settlements in the West Bank would be removed and others annexed behind a fortified Israeli border taking in swathes of land where Palestinians want a state.

''We've made it extremely clear to the Israeli government -- and the prime minister did to the Israeli prime minister yesterday -- that we are looking for negotiations, a negotiated settlement,'' Beckett told a parliamentary committee, when asked about Britain and the European Union view of Olmert's plan.

''Unilateral action by the Israeli government is... I was going to say very much second best. We would be reluctant to see such unilateral action,'' she said.

That brought a stinging rebuke from opposition Conservative legislator John Stanley, who asked Beckett: ''Isn't 'second-best' or 'reluctant to see' an incredibly weak stance against what would be in the previous view of the British government an illegal act by the Israeli government to acquire territory unilaterally?'' Beckett said some people had initially had strong reservations about Israel's withdrawal from Gaza but there had been ''rather grudging recognition in the end that some of these were moves in the right direction.'' ''But we've made and we will continue to make it extremely clear that there has to be a serious attempt to return to the process of negotiation,'' Beckett said.

Blair called for the international community yesterday to push hard for a negotiated peace or risk seeing Israel pursue selective redeployment in the occupied West Bank.

Olmert said in a British television interview on Sunday he was ready to make ''painful and divisive'' concessions in the quest for peace, but added that Palestinians must dismantle militant groups and recognise Israel's right to exist before negotiations could happen.

US President George W Bush gave Olmert's plan a boost last month but stressed Israel should first pursue peace talks.

Palestinians say the plan would deny them a viable state.

Reuters SY GC2306