Saudi Arabia reaffirms support for resolving Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Israel must withdraw from the Palestinian territories to reach a successful peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians, Saudi foreign minister Adel Al-Jubeir has said.

Speaking in an interview with Sueddeutsche Zeitung German newspaper, on the side-lines of the Munich Security Conference, Al-Jubeir has affirmed that a settlement for the Israel-Palestinian conflict could be reached, if Israel agreed to pull out from the Palestinian territories of West Bank and East Jerusalem, which were captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and where some 2.6 million Palestinians live.

“The Arab Peace Initiative calls for a settlement based on two states living side by side in peace and security, Palestinian state within the 67 borders with minor mutually agreed to adjustments to the territory.” the minister said as quoted by the Saudi Foreign Ministry website. He added: “(A) Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital, the just settlement of the refugees and ..this was the settlement that we believe is fair and just settlement.”

The foreign minister praised the US President Donald Trump’s endorsement to the two-state solution, a statement which he declared last week in a meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington.

Al-Jubeir noted that the sing-state solution “would never work”.