OIC rejects US Mideast plan

JEDDAH/WASHINGTON: The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation on Monday rejected US President Donald Trump’s peace plan for the Middle East, calling on its 57 member states not to help implement it.

The pan-islamic body, which represents more than 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide, “rejects this Us-israeli plan as it does not meet the minimum aspirations and legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and contradicts the terms of reference of the peace process”, it said in a statement.

A meeting of foreign ministers at OIC headquarters in the Saudi city of Jeddah called on “all member states not (to) deal with this plan or cooperate with the US administration efforts to enforce it in any way or form”.

Under the US plan, Israel would retain control of the disputed city of Jerusalem as its “undivided capital” and annex settlements on Palestinian lands. Trump said Palestinians would be allowed to declare a capital within annexed east Jerusalem.

The OIC reiterated its support for east Jerusalem as capital of a future Palestinian state.

US presidential adviser, and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner said on Sunday that if Palestinians are unable to meet the conditions of the new Middle East peace plan he crafted, Israel should not take “the risk to recognise them as a state”.

Palestinian territories amount to “a police state... not exactly a thriving democracy,” Kushner said on a CNN programme aired on Sunday and hosted by Fareed Zakaria. “For the Palestinians, if they want their people to live better lives, we now have a framework to do it.”