UNITED NATIONS:US Ambassador Nikki Haley on Thursday rejected suggestions that the United States was abandoning the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying Washington "absolutely" supports the policy but wants fresh ideas on how to move forward.
"Anybody that wants to say the United States does not support the two-state solution, that would be an error," Haley told reporters at the United Nations.
"We absolutely support a two-state solution, but we are thinking out-of-the-box as well," Haley said following a Security Council meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Her remarks appeared to temper those of President Donald Trump, who on Wednesday announced that the United States would not insist on a two-state solution to the conflict.
"I´m looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like," Trump said at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
That statement was seen as a break from previous US policy and from the international consensus on recognition of a Palestinian state as part of a final Middle East peace deal.
Haley said the United States wants to help bring Israelis and Palestinians "at the table to have them talk through this in a fresh way, to say ´okay we´re going back to the drawing board: what can we agree on?´".
In Washington, Trump´s nominee to become US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, said he was skeptical that a two-state solution was feasible but he did not rule it out.
"I have expressed my skepticism about the two-state solution solely on the basis of what I have perceived as unwillingness to renounce terror and accept Israel as a Jewish state," Friedman told a US Senate confirmation hearing.