US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggests that an upcoming US peace plan would break with longstanding understandings on issues such as Jerusalem and Israeli settlements, saying the old approach had failed.
“I’m very confident that what was tried before failed and I’m optimistic that what we’re doing will give us a better likelihood that we’ll achieve the outcomes that would be better for both the people of Israel and the Palestinian people as well,” Pompeo says as he testifies before Congress.
Pompeo repeatedly demurred when the committee’s Democratic chairwoman, Nita Lowey, asked him if the Trump administration stood by the decades-old US position in support of a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo waves as he speaks at the 2019 American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference, at Washington Convention Center, in Washington, Monday, March 25, 2019 (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Pompeo says the United States wanted to “broaden the debate,” when asked if a peace deal would focus as in the past on establishing borders, mutual recognition and the status of Jerusalem, Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the issue of Palestinian refugees.
“Those are the parameters that were largely at hand in the discussions before and they led us where we are today — no resolution,” Pompeo says.
He says the US plan will be “grounded in the facts on the ground and a realistic assessment of what would get us a good outcome.”
— with AFP
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