Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman Tuesday threatened his ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party would quit the government coalition if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu extends the freeze on settlement building, DPA reported.
The statement, reported Tuesday by the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, came after last week's announcement of the start of new direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians - for which the Palestinians demand an extension of the moratorium.
Lieberman had warned Netanyahu that his party would not agree to renewing the freeze, even if this only applied to isolated settlements, the report said.
"Lieberman has said in decisive terms that Yisrael Beiteinu will not be part of a process in which Israel capitulates to the Palestinian demands and extends the freeze," the daily quoted an unnamed top party official.
"If the freeze is extended we're unequivocally out," he said.
Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are due to launch the direct negotiations in Washington on September 2, the US and the European Union confirmed last Friday. Washington said the target was a two-state solution, to be reached within one year.
Netanyahu's rightist government coalition currently holds 74 seats in the Knesset, Israel's 120-seat parliament. However, the government would lose its majority if Yisrael Beiteinu's 15 members of parliament were to walk out of the coalition with Netanyahu's Likud party.
Likud could form a grand coalition with opposition leader Zipi Livni's centrist Kadima party which holds 28 seats in parliament.