Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday arrived in Cairo, where he is scheduled to meet with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah to discuss ways to internationalize talks toward a two-state resolution.
The Abbas-Sisi-Abdullah summit, which is expected to take place on Thursday, will discuss common issues and ways of unifying the Palestinian-Egyptian-Jordanian position in order to follow up on the political activities at the international level and seek to revive the peace process with Israel, senior Palestinian official Azzam al-Ahmed said.
The renewed push to review the peace process comes as Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has clarified that he has no intention of meeting with Abbas or engaging in peace talks.
Bennett’s spokesman Matan Sidi dismissed a report in the London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat which said that Bennett has been disinvited from what would have been a quadrilateral meeting in Cairo.
“There was no intention to hold a meeting with the PA president and there is no expectation that any such meeting will be held,” Sidi said.
He clarified that Bennett is scheduled to go to Cairo to meet with Sisi, but that no date had been set for the meeting.
“President Sisi invited the prime minister to meet in Egypt, and the prime minister will meet with him soon,” Sidi said.
Abbas wants an internationalized peace process in which the US is not the main broker. Ahmed indicated that the PA leadership was seeking the backing of Egypt and Jordan for relaunching the peace process with Israel under the umbrella of the United Nations with the participation of the Quartet members – the US, UN, Russia, and the European Union.
Ahmed said that the timing of the tripartite summit was extremely important because it comes ahead of the planned Arab summit in Algeria and the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York.
Abbas is accompanied by PA Foreign Minister Riyad Malki, head of the General Authority of Civil Affairs Hussein al-Sheikh, and General Intelligence Service Chief Majed Faraj.
On the eve of his visit to Cairo, Abbas chaired a meeting of the PLO leadership in Ramallah to discuss the latest developments surrounding the Palestinian issue. He also briefed the members of the PLO Executive Committee, the highest decision-making body of the organization, on the outcome of his Sunday night meeting with Defense Minister Benny Gantz.
Referring to the upcoming tripartite summit, the PLO committee said that it aims “to unify the vision between them to deal with political, regional and international efforts to move the peace process in the Middle East in order to end the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian and Arab lands occupied since 1967.”
“The Executive Committee also stressed that the Israeli side must understand that continuing the policy of settlement, killing, arrests, and attempting to change the character of Islamic and Christian religious places in Jerusalem and Hebron will not achieve its expansionist ambitions and will not bring security and stability,” the committee added. “The only way to security and peace for all is only by ending the Israeli occupation of the lands of the Occupied State of Palestine.
PA Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh on Tuesday also focused on the need for an internationalized Israeli-Palestinian peace process as he clarified that “Washington does not have a peace initiative at all.”
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