A senior Palestinian negotiator on Sunday said peace talks with Israel were drained and called for starting the establishment of a Palestinian statehood.

"The mutual negotiations have consumed everything they had and it is time to create the independent Palestinian state on the territories (Israel) occupied in 1967," said Ahmed Qurei, head of the Palestinian negotiating crew.

"Israel tries to waste the time," he said.

The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and Israel pursued months of negotiations since the United States intervened in November 2007, which failed to make any tangible progress.

The talks, which were put to an end when Israel launched a massive offensive against the Gaza Strip in December, officially broke off when Benjamin Netanyahu, an Israeli hawkish, formed a hard-line cabinet in late March.

Qurei said he encourages the establishment of the Palestinian statehood at the moment "because the new American administration is different from the former one and its visions are clear."

He praised the US calls on Israel to stop building settlements in the West Bank, which will comprise most of the Palestinian territories alongside East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

"There will be no solution with the settlement blocks cutting and dividing our land and preventing a viable statehood," he added.

(Xinhua News Agency June 1, 2009)