RAMALLAH, (Palestinian Territories): The Palestinian Authority of president Mahmud Abbas will restore security coordination with Israel, after it was severed in May, a PA minister said Tuesday evening.

“In the light of Mahmud Abbas’s international contacts... and given the written and verbal commitments we have received from the Israelis, we will resume relations where they were before May 19, 2020”, Hussein al-Sheikh, the PA’s civil affairs minister, said.

Abbas said at the time that the halt in coordination was a response to Israeli plans to annex parts of the West Bank. Israel later put its annexation plans on hold in return for an agreement to normalise ties with the United Arab Emirates, announced in August. “We will resume contacts with the Israelis on financial issues, on health issues, on political issues,” Palestinian prime minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said Tuesday.

The decision came after receipt of a letter from the Israeli authorities indicating “that Israel is ready to commit itself to the signed agreements with us,” Shtayyeh said in a video conference hosted by the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations.

“This is for us a very important step in the right direction,” he added, saying that the development followed intervention by the United States, the European Union and “other countries”.—AFP