“I want to express very strongly the total commitment of the United Nations, and my personal total commitment, to do everything for a two-state solution to materialize. I have said several times there is no Plan B to a two-state solution.”
WASHINGTON/CAIRO — “There is no Plan B to a two-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday during his first visit to the region since taking office in January.
His comments followed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement Monday that Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories “will not be uprooted.”
Speaking in Barkan, a settlement in the northern West Bank, Netanyahu added: “We have returned here for good. There will be no more uprooting of settlements in the Land of Israel.”
Nabil Shaath, a senior advisor to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, told Arab News that Guterres “was very upset” when he read Netanyahu’s comments.
“Netanyahu is very much in sync with the right-wing Zionist ideology that doesn’t want peace or a peace process, but wants to continue illegal Jewish settlements,” Shaath said.
I want to express very strongly the total commitment of the United Nations, and my personal total commitment, to do everything for a two-state solution to materialize. I have said several times there is no Plan B to a two-state solution.”
Standing next to Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah in Ramallah Tuesday, Guterres said: “I want to express very strongly the total commitment of the United Nations, and my personal total commitment, to do everything for a two-state solution to materialize. I have said several times there is no Plan B to a two-state solution.”
Riyad Mansour, Palestine’s permanent observer to the UN, told Arab News: “If there’s no Plan B, then the suspension of settlement activities throughout the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, is essential.”
Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian official who monitors settlement activity in the northern West Bank, told Arab News: “Netanyahu wants to defy the world by making the illegal legal. He wants everyone to accept what is clearly wrong and against the law.”
He added: “It’s absurd that these statements are being made during the UN secretary-general’s visit.”
A two-state solution has been the basis of international diplomacy since at least the early 1990s, but the Trump administration has yet to publicly endorse it.
The Palestinians seek the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip for an independent state alongside Israel, which captured the territories in 1967 but withdrew from Gaza in 2005.
c.arabnews.com