Jordan, Israel in rare meeting on Palestinian issue

AMMAN: Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi has held a rare meeting with his Israeli counterpart to support for the restart of the stalled negotiations between the Palestinians and the Jewish state.

The meeting came days after the Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas visited Jordan as part of an Arab tour to raise support for the Palestinian people after Joe Biden won last month’s US presidential election. During the meeting at the King Hussein (Allenby) bridge crossing between Jordan and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Safadi said the creation of an independent Palestinian state was key to end the conflict with the Jewish state.

“There is no alternative to a two-state solution” between Israel and the Palestinians, he told the Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, quoted by the official news agency. “It is necessary to return to the negotiating table to find a true solution to achieve just peace," Safadi said. On Friday, the Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz called on the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table, in a video statement addressing the “Palestinian people and their leadership”.

Gantz said in the statement that was posted online with Arabic subtitles, “The Middle East is changing. It is in your interest to return to the negotiation”. “Don´t stay behind,” he added, promising to “promote big projects” in the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip. Thursday´s meeting was the first with Jordan officially reported between Safadi and Ashkenazi after May. It is pertinent to mention that Jordan and Israel have been bound by a peace treaty since 1994 but the relations between the two neighbours are often tense.

Safadi said resuming the Israeli-Palestinian talks was timely, “particularly in light of the Palestinian Authority’s decision to resume security cooperation with Israel”. The Palestinians had announced in the last month that they were restoring coordination that was stopped in May after Israeli plans to annex parts of the West Bank. Israel put on hold its annexation plans, in return for an agreement to normalise ties with the United Arab Emirates announced in August.

Abbas held talks in Jordan last week with King Abdullah-II ahead of visits to Egypt, where he met separately with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Arab League Chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit. During the tour, Arab leaders stepped up international efforts for the solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict based on a two-state solution. Talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been frozen since 2014, and a US peace plan announced in January has been welcomed by Israel but rejected outright by the Palestinians termed as biased.