Palestinian President Urges Strengthening Relations with the United States

Jerusalem, December 22 (EFE). – The President of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, met today in the occupied West Bank with the US National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, and urged to “continue to strengthen bilateral relations” with that country.

He also called on the Palestinian president to “overcome obstacles in the way” between his government and Washington, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported today.

Wafa added that “the president stressed the need to stop the unilateral Israeli actions that undermine the two-state solution, and to implement the agreements signed between the two parties, in order to start a real political process.”

Among the unilateral measures that Abbas has warned about are settlement construction, attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians and the expulsion of Palestinian residents from Jerusalem neighborhoods, among others.

For his part, Sullivan affirmed the United States’ commitment to the two-state solution and said that it is necessary for the two parties to take joint measures that allow progress towards peace and stability in the region.

The link between the ANP and the White House was badly damaged during Donald Trump’s presidency and re-established with the arrival of the current US president, Joe Biden, who has yet to fulfill his promise to reopen the closed consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem in 2019.

The meeting was held at the Muqata Palace in Ramallah in the West Bank, as part of Sullivan’s visit to the region, where he met between yesterday and today, a number of Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, and the President of the Republic. Isaac Herzog and the defense and foreign ministers with whom he first discussed negotiations on the nuclear agreement with Iran. EFE

pd / psh