The United States rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people as a condition for renewing peace talks between the two sides, a report said yesterday.

The Israeli daily Haaretz quoted the US State Department as saying in a press statement, during special envoy George Mitchell’s visits over the weekend to Ramallah and Cairo, that Netanyahu’s demand is unacceptable to the US and that the Palestinians need not recognize Israel as Jewish state before talks.

The State Department added that the US would continue to promote a two-state solution.

The demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people was raised for the first time about 18 months ago in talks between Israel and the US ahead of the Annapolis Conference.

Then-Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni demanded that the conference’s closing statement mention a nation-state solution, a formulation meant to neutralize a Palestinian demand for refugees’ right of return.

However, the Bush administration accepted the Palestinian objection that the issue should be subject to negotiation.