EU, Mideast talks boost

BRUSSELS: EU foreign ministers were set to discuss efforts to restart the Middle East peace process during a visit by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to Brussels yesterday.

The visit came a month after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attended a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

His visit came on the heels of US President Donald Trump’s announcement that the US would recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

“We will host President Abbas… to discuss with him the ways in which the EU can support the restart of a process,” said EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini before the meeting.

She said the EU was strongly against the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.

“We, Europeans, as well as all the Arab world and the UN system as such, still continue to believe that the only pragmatic, realistic solution for Jerusalem has to come through direct negotiations and (it) has to be the capital of two states,” Mogherini said.

Alan Duncan, the British minister of state for Europe and the Americas, said: “I believe that the whole world really has got to focus on the Middle East pea ce process, trying to reboot it, so that the long promise to (a) two-state solution can be delivered in practice for the benefit of both countries.”

US Vice-President Mike Pence is in Jerusalem and was due to meet Netanyahu yesterday. – dpa