US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller says that comments made by Israeli Minister Bezalel Smotrich regarding annexing the West Bank are “certainly not conducive to building a lasting peace.”

Miller stressed that these statements “are incredibly inconsistent with the principles that Secretary (of State) Antony Blinken laid out in Tokyo last year.”

The Israeli finance minister sparked controversy with his statements on Monday regarding imposing sovereignty over the West Bank, when he considered Trump’s victory in the US elections an “opportunity” to annex the West Bank to Israel.

The Times of Israel newspaper quoted “informed” sources on Tuesday that “at least two former Trump administration officials warned senior Israeli ministers against assuming that Trump would support plans to annex the West Bank during his second term.”

The newspaper indicated that these warnings came before Smotrich’s announcement, which means that the hard-line ministers in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government did not pay attention to these warnings.