U.S. President Donald Trump has invited Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to the White House, according to White House spokesman Sean Spicer, as Middle East peace negotiations remain at an impasse.
The invitation was extended Friday after the two leaders talked by phone for the first time. Trump hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in mid-February.
During a White House briefing Friday with reporters, Spicer confirmed the invitation, but did not indicate when the meeting would take place.
At the meeting with Netanyahu, Trump said he was not singularly committed to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — a departure from the position held for years by his predecessors.
The Mideast peace process has been deadlocked since the April 2014 failure of indirect talks led by then-Secretary of State John Kerry.
On Tuesday, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, met for the first time with her Palestinian counterpart, Riyad Mansour. Following the meeting at the U.N., Haley posted on Twitter that the Palestinians should “meet with Israel in direct negotiations” rather than looking to the world body for solutions.
Source – VOA
