Secretary of State John Kerry continues a visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank in a bid to encourage U.S.-brokered peace talks. Kerry faced Palestinian complaints in Ramallah on Tuesday over Israel’s continued expansion of West Bank settlements. In a rare move for an Obama administration official, Kerry said the U.S. views Israel’s settlements as “illegitimate,” going beyond the normal White House language of “not helpful.” But Kerry stopped short of calling the settlements illegal.

Secretary of State John Kerry: “Let me emphasize at this point that the position of the United States of America on the settlements is that we consider now and have always considered the settlements to be illegitimate. And I want to make it extremely clear that at no time did the Palestinians in any way agree, as a matter of going back to the talks, that they somehow condone or accept the settlements. The Palestinians believe that the settlements are illegal. The United States has said that they believe the settlements are not helpful and they’re illegitimate.”

Despite calling the settlements “illegitimate,” Kerry refused to demand an end to their construction, saying Israeli expansion “would be much better off limited as much as possible.”