DHAKA: Israel will build a security fence on the border with Jordan, a report said on Sunday, enraging Palestinians ahead of talks with US state secretary John Kerry.

Israel has long stated that it seeks to retain a long-term military presence along the Jordan Valley, which the Palestinians vigorously oppose.

On Sunday morning, Israeli newspaper Maariv said that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu ‘decided to build a security fence in the Jordan Valley’, reports Turkish daily Hurriyet.

The paper frames the decision within the context of the ‘differences of opinion and the impasse the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians have reached over military control of the Jordan Valley’.

According to the report, Netanyahu will give the green light for the construction ‘immediately upon the completion of the fence on the Egyptian border’.

In January 2012, Netanyahu had told ministers he would ‘strengthen barriers along his country’s border with Jordan’ in a bid to keep out illegal migrants, once the security barrier along Israel’s border with Egypt’s Sinai peninsula was completed.

A spokesman for Netanyahu refused to provide details on the plan to ‘strengthen barriers’ or comment on the Maariv report, which was picked up by the official Palestinian Wafa news agency.

The spokesman of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas denounced the reported plans.

BDST: 1945 HRS, NOV 03, 2013
RoR/JCK