ShareUS President vows a 'very fair' peace plan
UNITED NATIONS: A handout picture shows Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi (right) meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York. - AFPUNITED NATIONS: President Donald Trump vowed yesterday to present a "very fair" Middle East peace plan by the end of the year and endorsed a two-state solution, apparently confident that the Palestinians would return to talks despite his unwavering support for Israel. Holding talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York, Trump said it was a "dream" of his to bring about a peaceful solution to a conflict that has eluded several of his predecessors. While Trump said he expected Israel to make concessions in any final settlement of the decades-old conflict, the Palestinians said his administration's policies in the Middle East were destroying hopes of peace.
Jared Kushner, who is Trump's son-in-law as well as a senior advisor in the White House, has been working on a peace plan for more than a year, but there have been few clues to date on what he is expected to propose. "I would say over the next two to three to four months," Trump said, referring to his prospective timetable for presenting a plan. Trump, who met with Netanyahu on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, said explicitly for the first time that he backed a two-state solution, saying: "That's what I think works best, that's my feeling."
"I really believe something will happen. It is a dream of mine to be able to get that done prior to the end of my first term," added Trump, who was elected to serve four years through January 2021. "Jared, who's so involved, he loves Israel but he's also going to be very fair with the Palestinians," the US president later told a news conference. "I think probably two-state is more likely but if they do a single, if they do a double, I'm okay with it if they're both happy. If they're both happy, I'm okay with either. I think the two-state is more likely," he said.
Palestinians skeptical
Middle East peace efforts effectively stalled when the Palestinians broke off contacts with the Trump administration last year in protest at Trump's landmark decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Palestinian foreign affairs minister Riyad al-Maliki was unimpressed with Trump's remarks, saying the US president chose his tone because he was appearing with Netanyahu.
Maliki-speaking after meeting in New York with representatives from 40 countries but not Kushner or other US officials-said Trump needed to state clearly that a two-state solution would include a return to borders from before the 1967 Six-Day War and that east Jerusalem is occupied rather than part of Israel. "These are important statements that President Trump has to say in order just to convince anyone that he is committed to real peace in our region," Maliki told reporters.
Maliki said that the Palestinians met more than 40 times with Trump's envoys only "to discover that they have opted to open that war against the Palestinians to inflict the most damage." Relations between the Palestinian Authority and the United States plummeted even lower in recent weeks after Washington cut off all funding to a UN agency that helps millions of Palestinian refugees, triggering a budget panic. Trump said, however, that he was in no doubt that the Palestinians would soon return to the negotiating table. "Absolutely, 100 percent," he said. "Lots of good things are happening," said Trump, before adding: "Israel will have to do something that will be good for the other side."
'Security control'
Israeli media quoted Netanyahu as saying that Israel must retain security control in any peace deal with the Palestinians west of Jordan to the Mediterranean-which includes the occupied West Bank. "Israel will not relinquish security control west of Jordan. This will not happen so long as I am prime minister and I think the Americans understand that," he reportedly said.
Netanyahu, Sisi meet
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi met in New York on Wednesday to discuss Gaza and reviving peace talks with the Palestinians, officials said. During the meeting, which lasted nearly two hours and took place on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, the two "discussed regional developments and the situation in Gaza", a statement from Netanyahu's office said.
In recent months, mass protests along Gaza's border with Israel have triggered repeated deadly clashes with the army, prompting warnings of the risk of a new conflict. On Tuesday, the World Bank warned that the Gaza Strip's economy is in "free fall" as cuts to aid and salaries add to an already crippling Israeli blockade on the Hamas-run enclave. Gaza lies between Israel and Egypt, which along with the UN has been seeking to broker a long-term truce between Israel and Hamas, but those efforts have stalled in recent weeks.
Netanyahu and Sisi also discussed "ways to revive the peace process" between Israel and the Palestinians, a statement from the Egyptian president's office said. Sisi told Netanyahu that "a final and just settlement to the Palestinian issue would contribute to providing a new situation in the Middle East," the statement said. Both Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas are due to address the UN General Assembly later, a day after US President Donald Trump met the Israeli premier and pledged to present a "very fair" Middle East peace plan by the end of the year.- Agencies
