Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit (L) meets with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres in Cairo on February 16, 2017. (Mohamed El-Shahed/AFP)
Arab League chief Ahmed Abul Gheit said on Thursday that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would require a two-state solution, a day after Washington signaled it would drop that demand.
Abul Gheit affirmed that the conflict “requires a comprehensive and just peace based on a two-state solution with an independent Palestinian state,” a statement said after he met UN chief Antonio Guterres in Cairo.
His comments came a day after US President Donald Trump met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and suggested a two-state solution was not necessary.
Guterres had also called for a two-state solution on Wednesday in a speech in Cairo, saying there was “no Plan B.”
US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands during a joint press conference at the White House in Washington, DC, on February 15, 2017 (Saul Loeb/AFP)
The Arab League statement said he and Abul Gheit “agreed that the two-state solution remains the real way to achieving” peace.
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For the better part of half a century, successive US governments — both Republican and Democrat — have backed a two-state solution, although the first to explicitly endorse it was president George W. Bush in 2002.
Palestinian Liberation Organization secretary-general Saeb Erekat said the PLO remained committed to two states and would oppose any system that discriminated against Palestinians.
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