Germany: ‘Creating facts unilaterally’ will hurt Israeli-Palestinian peace talks

Germany’s foreign minister warns against unilateral steps that could hurt Mideast peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians following the change in administration in the United States.

“Creating facts unilaterally won’t help us in this already difficult situation,” Germany’s top diplomat, Heiko Maas, tells reporters after meeting with his Palestinian counterpart in Berlin. “But no doors should be slammed shut either, in view of developments in the United States.”

Maas doesn’t spell out what unilateral measures he is concerned about. But on Monday, his office criticizes Israel’s public call for tenders to build settlements in East Jerusalem as a “step that sends the wrong signal at the wrong time.”

Maas notes that US president-elect Joe Biden agrees with Germany’s position that a negotiated two-state solution should be the basis for peace talks between the parties.

The Palestinian foreign minister, Riyad al-Maliki, says he sees in Biden’s election “a window of opportunity, and we want to take advantage of that window of opportunity in order really just to open a new page.”

Al-Maliki adds that “we suffered tremendously, as Palestine, from Trump’s policies.”

— AP