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Abbas, Coptic Pope decline to meet Pence during Middle East visit
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US President Donald Trump speaks alongside US Vice President Mike Pence (right) during an event marking National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, DC, Dec. 7, 2017. (Agence France -Presse/Saul Loeb)
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either the Palestinian Authority president nor the head of the Coptic Church in Egypt plan to meet with US Vice President Mike Pence when he visits the Middle East later this month, to protest the US declaration that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.
The rejections emerged as the Anadolu Agency said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and French President Emmanuel Macron agreed to work together to persuade the US to change its stance on Jerusalem. Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi said the United Nations Security Council should now move to “bring the US to compliance.”
Protests against the US move extended for a third day in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. The Gaza Health Ministry said four Palestinians were killed in the past 24 hours in clashes with Israeli soldiers or by Israeli air strikes, launched in response to rocket fire on southern Israeli towns.
Trump’s decision, presented as being in “the pursuit of peace between Israel and the Palestinians,” has been denounced across the Arab world. Members of the Security Council condemned the move Friday as contradicting international law and prejudging the outcome of negotiations. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the decision ”courageous” and “just.”
Palestinians claim the eastern sector of Jerusalem, with shrines sacred to Muslims, Jews and Christians, as the capital of a future state. Israel’s current government sees the area as part of the nation’s eternal capital.
Jerusalem’s status must worked out in peace negotiations with Israel, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki said in Cairo, where he added that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas wasn’t planning to meet Pence and stressed that the peace process needed a new mediator.
Pope Tawadros II, head of the Coptic Church in Egypt, also won’t meet Pence because the US administration’s decision fails to take “into consideration the feelings of millions of people,” the church said on its Facebook page.
Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, said Trump’s Jerusalem announcement “extended a lifeline to terrorist groups and armed organizations, which have started to lose ground in the region.”He expressed hope that Trump would retract it, according to state-run WAM news agency.
