The U.S. on Monday changed its position on Israeli settlements built in the occupied West Bank, breaking with precedent dating back over four decades.

Axar.az reports citing Anadolu Agency.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the move away from the State Department's 1978 legal opinion, which held that settlements are "inconsistent with international law.”

Pompeo said the opinion does not further the peace process, maintaining that Washington will no longer take a position on the settlements' legality, and that the establishment of Israeli settlements "is not per se inconsistent with international law."

"Calling the establishment of civilian settlements inconsistent with international law hasn't worked, it hasn't advanced the cause of peace," Pompeo said in remarks to reporters. "The hard truth is there will never be a judicial resolution to the conflict, and arguments about who is right and wrong as a matter of international law will not bring peace."

The Hansell Memorandum had been the foundation for the U.S. position on settlements in the occupied West Bank for over 40 years. It holds that Israel's settlements "appear to constitute a 'transfer of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies,'" maintaining their inconsistency with international law.

Pompeo said the new policy, which would pertain solely to the West Bank, would be that the U.S. has "no view" on the legal status of individual settlements, and the top diplomat said the U.S. would not prejudge the final status of the West Bank.

"This is for the Israelis and the Palestinians to negotiate," he said.