Mahmoud Abbas said the Arab League summit on Wednesday confirmed that the Arab world had a “clear” vision for peace on the basis of two-states.

By i24NEWS

President Donald Trump is “serious” about solving the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said ahead of a meeting with the US leader.

Netanyahu at White House with Trump – White House/YouTube

“The US administration of President Donald Trump is seriously considering a solution to the Palestinian issue,” Abbas told AFP late Wednesday after a meeting of the Arab League in Jordan.

Abbas met with Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt before leaving for the summit and said contacts with the administration were ongoing.

“(There is) continuing dialogue with the American administration and there were a number of issues they wanted our opinion on or our answer to them,” he added.

“We gave them our position on all their questions.”

Abbas met with Greenblatt on the sidelines of the summit on Tuesday night as the White House seeks ways to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Greenblatt said on Twitter that he held a “very positive meeting” with Abbas.

“Continued discussion on how to make tangible progress on peace,” he wrote.

Trump has said he would be interested in pursuing some form of regional peace initiative, but has sent mixed signals over how he plans to handle the conflict.

On Wednesday, it was reported by sources to the Jerusalem Post that the Trump administration was considering hosting a landmark conference between the Israeli prime minister, the Palestinian Authority president, and respective Gulf Arab leaders together on the same stage. however no formal plans were in the works.

Both Israel and the US denied the reports, but it could be a potential goal the sources suggested.

“The time has come to make a deal,” Greenblatt said at the summit. Adding that Trump believes an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement “will reverberate positively throughout the region and the world.”

Palestinians previously complained of being “overlooked” following the new president’s inauguration, but Abbas is expected to meet with Trump in Washington for the first time in April.

Trump is also expected to meet other Arab leaders in the coming weeks, including Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II.

Trump caused alarm among Palestinians and many parts of the international community in February when he broke with years of US policy in support of the two-state solution, meaning an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.

“I’m looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like,” Trump said at the White House before a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Abbas said the Arab League summit on Wednesday confirmed that the Arab world had a “clear” vision for peace on the basis of two-states.

A draft statement was drawn up on the eve of the summit opposing plans by US President Donald Trump to move Washington’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and consider alternatives to a Palestinian state.

The draft, which was drawn up by the Palestinian delegation, was approved by Arab foreign ministers at an eve-of-summit meeting in the Jordanian Dead Sea resort of Sweimeh.

Arab League member states “reaffirm their commitment to the two-state solution and to the right of the State of Palestine to restore its sovereignty over the territories occupied in 1967, including east Jerusalem,” the draft says.

The summit was organized to seek alignment on various regional issues, including a Saudi-led peace plan, as well as to appeal to the current Trump administration on his approach toward the region.

In their final statement, the leaders called for a revival of “serious and productive peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians” and renewed their commitment to a two-state solution.

(Staff with AFP)

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