Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas meets with Jason Greenblatt, U.S. President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, March 14, 2017. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy held his first talks on Tuesday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, amid Palestinian concerns that the new administration in Washington is more favorably disposed toward Israel.
Jason Greenblatt’s talks with Abbas took place in Ramallah, the Palestinian seat of government, a day after he held a lengthy meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.
“President Abbas & I discussed how to make progress toward peace, building capacity of Palestinian security forces & stopping incitement,” Greenblatt tweeted after the meeting.
In a separate statement issued by the U.S. Consulate General, the two men “reaffirmed the commitment of both the Palestinian Authority and the United States to advance a genuine and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians”.
Abbas stressed that the Palestinian strategic choice was to achieve a two-state solution, the statement added.
Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been frozen since 2014. Since his inauguration on Jan. 20, Trump has been ambivalent about a two-state solution, the mainstay of U.S. policy in the region for the past two decades.
“I’m looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like … I can live with either one,” Trump told a Feb. 15 news conference during a visit to Washington by Netanyahu, causing consternation across the Arab world and in many European capitals.
However, Trump last Friday held his first telephone conversation with Abbas since becoming president and invited him to the White House.
Tuesday’s statement said Abbas had told Greenblatt he believed that under Trump’s leadership “a historic peace deal was possible”.
Abbas and Greenblatt also discussed plans to strengthen the Palestinian economy and the importance of ensuring economic opportunities for Palestinians, the statement said.
On Monday, Netanyahu and Greenblatt discussed Israel’s settlement building “with the hope of reaching a formula that will aim to promote peace and security”, the Israeli leader’s office said.
One of the most heated issues between Israel and the Palestinians is Israel’s building of settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, territory the Palestinians want for their own future state along with the Gaza Strip.
Greenblatt, a longtime top lawyer in Trump’s company, also serves as the president’s special negotiator for trade deals, among other responsibilities.
(Reporting by Ori Lewis; Editing by Gareth Jones)
Abbas will say whatever he feels will make him and the Palestinian People seem like they want a 2 state solution while trying to gain sympathy from the US and Europe when he promotes, supports and celebrates unwarranted attacks against IsraelI Jews in the street and places. Be careful Abbas is like the spider saying goodbye the fly ” Come I will let you pass me and my Web to get to your destination but, then immediately starts charging towards the fly. Prime Minister Netanyahu And President Trump should not work towards a 2 State Solution, GOD makes it very clear, DO NOT DIVIDE MY LAND, IT IS HIS LAND MANAGED BY THE JEWISH PEOPLE AS WELL AS BIENG OWNERS BY GOD. TROUBLE ALWAYS COMES. WHEN MAN DOES HIS/HER OWN PLAN. WE NEED TO BE PRAYING BECAUSE THIS IS NOT ABOUT WHO CAN MAKE THE DEAL HAPPEN AND GET CREDIT FOR DOING SO. GOD WANTS HIS LAND UNDIVIDED IT IS TRULY ABOUT WHAT GOD SAID AND WANTS, HIS WILL KINGDO. COME, HIS WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN!