Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated his call this week for direct peace talks with the Palestinians as the only way to achieve peace.
In recent weeks, Prime Minister Netanyahu has reaffirmed his willingness to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to restart negotiations without any preconditions.
Netanyahu said: “The path to peace is not via international conferences that attempt to force a settlement”. He warned that such an approach would “make the Palestinian demands more extreme and in the process distance peace”.
The Israeli Prime Minister underlined: “The path to peace is via direct negotiations and without preconditions between the parties. That’s how it was in the past when we achieved peace with Egypt and also with Jordan”.
Netanyahu’s comments came ahead of a meeting in Paris where senior diplomats are expected to gather to advance France’s multi-lateral peace initiative. France’s former-Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius announced earlier this year that the country intended to host an international conference with the goal of agreeing the implementation of a two-state solution.
On Wednesday in an interview on LBC, Israel’s Ambassador to the UK, H.E. Mark Regev, echoed the Israeli Prime Minister’s position, stating: “We are ready to start peace talks, immediately and without preconditions”.
The Israeli Prime Minister recently backed a call by Egypt’s President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi to restart negotiations between Israel and the PA within a regional context. Earlier this week, Netanyahu said “we are willing to negotiate” on the basis of the Arab peace initiative, a Saudi-spearheaded plan.
