OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, December 31 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Israel announced Wednesday, December 31, a 40-million-dollar plan for building Jewish settlements on the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, a blow to hopes of any progress on the Israeli-Syrian chapter of the Middle East peace conflict.

Israeli Agriculture Minister Israel Katz said some nine new settlements would be created in the region - which Israel occupied in 1967 and annexed 14 years later - in addition to expansion projects for existing settlements.

"The aim is to send an unequivocal message: the Golan is an integral part of Israel and we will continue to develop the settlements," Katz was quoted by Agence France-Presse as telling the Israeli public radio.

Jewish settlers will jump by 50% over three years there to strengthen Israel's grip on the land seized from Syria in 1967, he said.

Syria reacted angrily, saying that sovereignty should be resolved by international law, not military power.

Correspondents called the move a slap in the face to Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose attempt to restart peace negotiations comes after four years of deadlock.

At the beginning of December, Assad called on the U.S. to support renewed negotiations with Israel so as to normalize the two neighbors' relations and defuse the volatile situation on northern borders.

He had stressed that negotiations should resume where they left off in January 2000 between his late father Hafez and Sharon's Labor predecessor Ehud Barak.

However, hawkish Sharon had already responded on Sunday that talks with Damascus should start from scratch.

Barak had agreed to relinquish most of the Golan plateau, only retaining control over that part of the shore of the Sea of Galilee which had been in Syrian hands before being occupied by Israel in 1967.

The Golan is a strategic military observatory for both Syria and Israel, and a withdrawal back to the 1967 borders would put two out of three sources of the Jordan river back under Syrian control.

The Jordan feeds the Sea of Galilee, which provides for a third of Israel's water needs through the national water carrier.

France urged Israel to immediately abandon its plans, asserting such a move could compromise the Middle East peace process.

"The approval by an Israeli inter-ministerial commission of the extension of Jewish settlements in the Golan Heights can only complicate" the resumption of talks between Israel and Syria, said foreign ministry spokesman Herve Ladsous.

"France thus immediately calls on Israel not to implement these plans and not to take any other decisions that could compromise the peace process," Ladsous told reporters.

He told reporters: "France and the European Union consider the establishment of populated settlements in occupied territories to be contrary to international law."

Paris backs the resumption of talks between Israel and Syria "as soon as possible," said the spokesman.

The Israeli move also draw criticism from Israeli lawmakers, since settlements are deemed illegal under international law and conventions.

Senior Israeli Labor MP Haim Ramon charged that "the only goal of the (settlement) plan was to torpedo any chance of new negotiations with Syria".