RAMALLAH, April 7 (JMCC) - Israel would respond to a Palestinian statehood declaration by ending its compliance with peace agreements, foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman said in a radio interview.

You know, a unilateral announcement would release us of all of our obligations, he told Russian radio REKA. Unfortunately, lots of agreements and obligations have emerged since the Oslo accords, and we abide by them all, though we were not responsible for the Oslo accords. A unilateral decision by the Palestinian authorities to announce their independence would release us from all of our obligations.

Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad declared his intention to declare a Palestinian state in 2011 in a recent interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. The plan has received some support from the international community.

In a February  newspaper interview French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that to break a stalemate in Middle East peacemaking, some countries might recognize a Palestinian state before its borders were fixed.

One can imagine a Palestinian state being rapidly declared and immediately recognized by the international community, even before negotiating its borders. I would be tempted by that, he told the Journal du Dimanche.

Lieberman went on to say that any unilateral decision by the Palestinian Authority would reap a similar reaction from Israel, threatening to annex areas of the occupied West Bank to Israel and proceed in stalled settlement construction.

Then we can respond by unilateral decisions of our own, he told the radio interviewer,such as extending our sovereignty over settlement blocs in the West Bank, construction in the A1 zone, and so forth.