Jordan, Egypt, EU urge 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.

After Thursday’s meeting, the ministers stressed “the urgency of the resumption of serious, meaningful and effective negotiations on the basis of international law and agreed parameters directly between the parties or under the UN umbrella.”

“We call upon the parties to commit to past agreements and to resume credible dialogue on this basis,” they said. The meeting was also attended by the EU’s envoy for the peace process.

The ministers also met Jordan’s King Abdullah II, who reiterated a long-held position that ending the conflict required “a two-state solution with an independent (and) viable Palestinian state” based on pre-1967 borders, with east Occupied-al-Quds as the Palestinians’ capital. The UAE and Bahrain signed accords normalising ties with Israel at a September 15 ceremony hosted by US President Donald Trump.