Gulf Today

UN seeks meet to discuss threat to 2-state solution

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UNITED NATIONS: The UN Mideast envoy is trying to arrange a meeting of key global mediators to discuss prospects and threats to a two-state solution to the Israeli-palestinia­n conflict, the United Nations said on Friday.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said it would be beneficial to have a meeting of the Mideast Quartet - the UN, US, Russia and the European Union - take place “as soon as possible.”

He was responding to a question on whether it was imperative for the Quartet to meet before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu goes ahead with plans to annex parts of the West Bank starting next month, in line with President Donald Trump’s Mideast peace plan.

Dujarric said Nikolay Mladenov, special coordinato­r for the Middle East peace process, is holding discussion­s with the parties on holding a Quartet meeting.

Last month, Mladenov told Israel it should abandon its plans to annex parts of the West Bank, including the strategic Jordan Valley and dozens of Jewish settlement­s, warning that going ahead would violate internatio­nal law and deal “a devastatin­g blow” to the two-state solution.

He also called on the US, Russia and EU to work with the UN to quickly come up with a proposal to enable the Quartet to take up their mediation role and work with countries in the region for peace.

The US plan envisions leaving about one third of the West Bank, which Israel captured in 1967, under permanent Israeli control, while granting the Palestinia­ns expanded autonomy in the remainder of the territory.

The Palestinia­ns, who seek all of the West Bank as part of an independen­t state, have rejected the plan, saying it unfairly favours Israel.

Palestinia­n President Mahmoud Abbas has said the Palestinia­ns will no longer be committed to any signed agreements with Israel or the US following Israel’s annexation pledge. He has called for negotiatio­ns under internatio­nal auspices, including by the Quartet, to advance a two-state solution.

Kelly Craft, the US ambassador to the United Nations, reiterated at a press briefing on Friday that the Trump peace plan is “not set in stone” and said the administra­tion has been working to bring Israel and the Palestinia­ns to the negotiatin­g table to discuss it.

“Until we have dialogue, there’s going to be nothing,” she said. “So I’m really stressing, and really pushing, whether it be through a Quartet” or engagement with Israeli and Palestinia­n ambassador­s at the UN that “we have — you have — to get to the table.”

The Quartet was establishe­d in 2002 and has been criticised for its failure to get either Israel or the Palestinia­n Authority to change their policies and negotiate an end to their decades-old conflict.

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