US 'Prepared to Recognize' Israel's Annexation of West Bank - State Dept. Spokesperson
The United States is ready to recognize Israel's annexation of the West Bank but asked Israel's government to negotiate with the Palestinians first, a State Department spokesperson has said, as quoted by the Times of Israel publication
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th April, 2020) The United States is ready to recognize Israel's annexation of the West Bank but asked Israel's government to negotiate with the Palestinians first, a State Department spokesperson has said, as quoted by the Times of Israel publication.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week said that his fresh unity government would move to annex the Jordan Valley and Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
According to the newspaper, the spokesperson said that the US was prepared to recognize the annexation in line with US President Donald Trump's peace plan.
"As we have made consistently clear, we are prepared to recognize Israeli actions to extend Israeli sovereignty and the application of Israeli law to areas of the West Bank that the vision foresees as being part of the State of Israel," the spokesperson said.
The unnamed diplomatic representative went on to say that the annexation must entail a negotiation with the Palestinian Authorities, who reside in and claim ownership of the Jordan Valley.
The step would be "in the context of the Government of Israel agreeing to negotiate with the Palestinians along the lines outlined in President Trump's Vision," the spokesperson said.
The comments come after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week said that annexing the parts of the West Bank was ultimately an "Israeli decision."
The statements prompted the UN to denounce the "dangerous" plan as a violation of international law and EU's top diplomat Josep Borrell to say that such a move would not be recognized by the bloc's 27 members.
President of the Palestinian Authorities Mahmoud Abbas rejected the possibility of negotiations and said that Ramallah would cancel all existing deals with Israel and the US if the annexation went ahead.
Trump's high-criticized peace plan was largely panned by the international community and triggered a wave of violence in the West Bank, but stipulated that Israel would extend sovereignty over the West Bank and effectively surround Palestinian settlements in exchange for Palestinian access to Israeli ports and patches of land in the desolate southern desert regions. The so-called vision played a large part of Netanyahu's election campaigns to pander to Israel's right-wing and nationalist electorate.