WASHINGTON: The United States is no more insisting on a two-state solution for the Palestinian issue, a senior White House official said ahead of visit by the Israeli Prime Minister to Washington, marking a major departure from the decades of US policy to resolve the Middle East's most contentious problem.
"A two-state solution that doesn't bring peace is not a goal that anybody wants to achieve - Peace is the goal, whether it comes in the form of a two-state solution, if that's what the parties want, or something else. If that's what the parties want, we're going to help them," the official told reporters, according to various media reports.
The US previous position on the dispute had long been a cornerstone of international peace talks on the issue that has bedeviled peace in the Middle East. US President Trump is scheduled to meet the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House Wednesday.
The reports, quoting the official said that the Trump administration will not 'dictate' the terms of any potential agreement on the longstanding Israel-Palestine issue.
President Trump sparked a controversy early this year when he suggested that the US embassy might move to Jerusalem, indicating a drastic change from the old US policy, including that of President Obama who had said that the status quo between Israel and Palestine was 'unsustainable' and that the two-state solution was the answer to the problem.
The city of Jerusalem was annexed by Israel in the 1967 war, a move that has not been recognized by the international community. The issue of moving US embassy to Jerusalem was likely to come up for discussion during the talks between the two leaders, an official said.
The Obama administration early this year decided to abstain from a UN Security Council resolution that condemned Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, a decision that drew a strong rebuke from President Trump.
The official, who spoke to reporters ahead of the meeting, said that the new Trump administration would take a posture at the UN that would be to 'veto anything that is biased against Israel'. The newly appointed US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, is a supporter of Israeli settlements.
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