Jordan, EU seek new Israel-Palestinian talks

AMMAN: The foreign ministers of Jordan, Egypt, France and Germany on Thursday urged Israel and the Palestinians to engage in “credible dialogue” to restore “hope” to the peace process. “Ending the stalemate in peace talks, the creation of political horizons and the restoration of hope through credible dialogue must be a priority,” they said in a statement. The meeting comes after the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain formally established full diplomatic ties with Israel, the third and fourth Arab states to do so after Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994. Talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been frozen since 2014, and a US peace plan announced in January has been welcomed by Israel and rejected outright by the Palestinians as biased.