A United Nations conference co-hosted by France and Saudi Arabia aimed at forging a roadmap towards a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians has been postponed after Israel launched a military attack on Iran, two sources said on Friday.
A Western diplomatic source in Riyadh said that the Saudi-French conference would be postponed partially due to the attacks on Iran.
A second source familiar said some delegations from the Middle East would not or could not come due to developments.
French President Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman were supposed to co-chair the conference in June, focused on advancing the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israeli officials previously claimed that the conference was intended to promote unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state—a claim France firmly denies.
Possible solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The leaders of France, the United Kingdom, and Canada released a statement that ended, “We affirm the important role of the High-level Two-State Solution Conference at the UN in June in building international consensus around this aim. And we are committed to recognizing a Palestinian state as a contribution to achieving a two-state solution and are prepared to work with others to this end.”
US President Donald Trump doesn’t consider the two-state solution the only way to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
He has said, “I support a plan of peace, and it can take different forms. I support whatever solution we can do to get peace. There are other ideas other than two-state, but I support whatever is necessary to get not just peace, [but] a lasting peace. It can’t go on where every five years you end up in tragedy. There are other alternatives.”
ALIZA PILICHOWSKI and AMICHAI STEIN contributed to this report.