EU asks US to ditch Trump peace plan and join new Middle East peace effort
Josep Borrell said Monday that the Trump plan has created a “certain momentum where there was nothing.”
By GABE FRIEDMAN/JTAUS President Donald Trump.(photo credit: REUTERS)
The European Union’s foreign policy chief effectively rejected President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan and asked the United States to join a new international effort to broker a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.Josep Borrell said Monday that the Trump plan has created a “certain momentum where there was nothing,”according to The Associated Press, and the momentum “can be used to start a joint international effort on the basis of existing internationally agreed parameters.” The Trump plan does not respect those parameters, Borrell implied.German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas joined in, calling for a “multilateral format” that allows “both sides to speak and negotiate with each other.”Before his comments, Borrell and other EU foreign ministers in a call with Mike Pompeo warned the US Secretary of State that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to annex parts of the West Bank would endanger the prospects of a two-state solution and stability in the Middle East.Borrell and the foreign ministers did not offer details on what a new international peace effort would look like.
