France warns Trump not to recognise Jerusalem as capital

Palestinians were also displaced in other neighboring countries in 1948 after the establishment of the Jewish State and after the Arab-Israeli June 1967 war. “I was also very pleased to discuss the strong bilateral relations between Israel and the United Kingdom”.

But with all the challenges facing the world, the worldwide community has accepted the invitation of French President François Hollande to come together again and urge Mr. Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hammer out a two-state solution to decades-long conflict.

Neither Israeli nor Palestinian leaders are in attendance at the Paris conference, which Israel’s prime minister said was rigged against his country.

“This pushes peace backwards”. It’s not going to obligate us. “It’s a relic of the past”.

The conference follows United Nations resolution last month, which decried Israel’s efforts to expand its settlement on occupied territories in Jerusalem and West Bank.

He expressed readiness to resume negotiations with Israel on all final status issue “to reach a permanent and comprehensive peace within an worldwide framework and specific timeline based on global terms of reference, the Madrid principles, the Arab Peace Initiative, Security Council resolution 2334 and the Paris communiqué”.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault warned Sunday that if Trump carried out his campaign pledge to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to the contested city of Jerusalem, it would have “extremely serious consequences”.

French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Marc Ayrault welcomes US Secretary of State John Kerry as he arrives for the Mideast peaceconference in Paris, France, January 15, 2017. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had been expected to go, but his visit was postponed. French officials suggested that he would come for bilateral talks in the coming weeks.

The French diplomatic initiative entails indirect negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, at least in the beginning, with worldwide arbitration and a resolution to pressure Israel into concessions that could hinder its security.

France organised the gathering to reaffirm global support for a Palestinian state existing alongside an Israeli state – a scenario the Palestinians fear could be jeopardised by Donald Trump’s incoming U.S. administration.

Trump’s choice for secretary of defense said at confirmation hearings before the U.S. Senate on Thursday that Tel Aviv is Israel’s capital, although Trump has said he intends to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.

Palestinians living inside Israel under what many human rights observers consider to be clear discriminatory laws, meanwhile, are left out of the conversation entirely, which requires a questioning of why the conflict is being framed without their voices.

The Vatican stepped into the fray Saturday, emphasizing the sacred character of Jerusalem. The sides haven’t even negotiated indirectly since the process Kerry led collapsed in 2014.

French President Francois Hollande has invited President Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Paris to discuss the outcome of the conference.

Experts agree there is little chance that Sunday’s conference will achieve much. The move would reverse decades of USA policy that the final status of Jerusalem should be determined in peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

Even Hollande has played down the prospects of a breakthrough. But he said it may be unrealistic.

Neither Israel nor Palestine would attend the Paris summit.

“We reached peace with two of our neighbors – Egypt and Jordan – by direct negotiation”, Hotovely said.