Egypt’s president on Monday 14 August 2023 welcomed the Palestinian and Jordanian leaders, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s spokesman stated, with a supply including they mentioned speculations over Saudi Arabia shifting to normalise ties with Israel.
Sisi met with King Abdullah II of Jordan and Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas within the northern coastal metropolis of El Alamein, Egyptian presidential spokesman Ahmed Fahmy stated.
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What was the agenda of the discussions
Throughout a tripartite assembly, the leaders mentioned “the event of the Palestinian trigger” and expressed their assist for a “two-state answer” to the Israeli-Palestinian battle with east Jerusalem as the longer term Palestinian capital, Fahmy stated in a later assertion.
However whereas there was no point out of the subject of potential Israeli-Saudi normalisation within the official assertion, a Palestinian supply near the matter advised AFP that it was the important thing subject on the desk.
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The summit was held “to debate US efforts to attain normalisation of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, and the Palestinian Authority’s necessities within the framework of the signing of such a deal”, the supply stated.
Egypt was the primary Arab nation to normalise ties with Israel in 1979, adopted by Jordan in 1994. Each international locations are key allies of Saudi Arabia.
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Quite a few Arab international locations, together with the United Arab Emirates and Morocco, adopted swimsuit many years later, recognising Israel in a collection of US-brokered offers referred to as the Abraham Accords.
There was a lot hypothesis within the media, significantly in latest weeks, that Saudi Arabia would comply with swimsuit, however such a deal has but to materialise.
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Ambassador to function consul basic in Israel
Riyadh on Saturday named for the primary time a non-resident ambassador for the Palestinian Territories who may also function consul basic in Jerusalem.
The file for the Palestinian Territories has historically been dealt with by the Saudi embassy in Amman. Israel has additionally not formally commented on the rumoured normalisation push, however Overseas Minister Eli Cohen has stated that “peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia is a matter of time”.
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Throughout US President Joe Biden’s tour of the Center East final 12 months, the Saudi civil aviation authority introduced that it was lifting overflight restrictions on “all carriers”, paving the best way for Israeli planes to make use of Saudi airspace.
Biden himself flew on to Jeddah from Israel’s Ben Gurion airport for his talks with Saudi leaders. However the kingdom denied on the time that the airspace transfer was “a precursor to any additional steps” in direction of normalisation.
sar/jsa/ami© Agence France-Presse
