Ramallah, Palestinian Territories – Mahmud Abbas said Tuesday, Donald Trump was expected to visit the Palestinian territories “soon” and that he was ready to meet Israel’s prime minister as part of the US president’s peace efforts.
“We are looking forward to his visit soon to Bethlehem” in the occupied West Bank, with speculation it will occur on May 23, Abbas said.
“We told him that we were ready to collaborate with him and meet the Israeli PM (Benjamin Netanyahu) under his auspices to build peace,” Abbas told reporters during talks with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Abbas met Trump in Washington last week for their first face-to-face talks. Trump announced last week that his first foreign trip as president will be to Saudi Arabia.
A senior Trump aide last week did not rule out the possibility of a presidential visit to the West Bank. Trump has been seeking ways to restart moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.
As he hosted Abbas in Washington, Trump confidently predicted that a peace agreement was within grasp, brushing aside the complexities of a decades-old conflict that has bedeviled successive US leaders.
Abbas said Tuesday that “we told him again of our commitment to a peace based on justice, with international resolutions and the two-state solution as references.”
Trump has, however, sent mixed signals over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He backed away from the US commitment to the two-state solution – Israel and an independent Palestinian state side-by-side – when he met Netanyahu in February.
He said he would support a single state if it led to peace, delighting Israeli right-wingers who want to see their country annex most of the occupied West Bank.
German president: Moving toward Mideast deal ‘truly urgent’
Germany’s president says that it’s “truly urgent” to start moving toward a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke in the West Bank on Tuesday, after meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Steinmeier says much time has already been spent on efforts to set up a state of Palestine alongside Israel. He says that, “in our view there is no other solution,” and that “it’s high time to work on the requirements for it.” Abbas met last week with President Donald Trump who has promised to try to broker an elusive deal. Abbas said in an interview Monday that Trump gave him the impression that “he wanted to do something quickly, in a year more or less.” – Agencies
