Gaza’s reconstruction plan must be linked to a path that leads to a “comprehensive and lasting peace based on the two-state solution,” UAE President Shaikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan told US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a meeting yesterday.
US top diplomat Rubio arrived in Abu Dhabi yesterday morning for the final leg of his first Middle East tour, after breakthrough talks with Russian officials in Riyadh.
During their meeting, Shaikh Mohammed reaffirmed the UAE’s firm stance, rejecting any attempts to displace the Palestinian people from their land, the Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported.
US President Donald Trump has come under fire for proposing a plan to forcibly relocate Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan.
Trump first floated the suggestion of Jordan and Egypt taking in Palestinians from Gaza on January 25. When asked if he was suggesting that as a long-term or short-term solution, the president said: “Could be either.”
The US president’s comments echoed long-standing Palestinian fears of being permanently driven from their homes and were labelled as a proposal of ethnic cleansing by critics. Jordan, Egypt and other Arab nations, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, opposed the proposal.
The meeting also covered a range of regional and international issues of shared concern, “with a focus on developments in the Middle East and the Occupied Palestinian Territory and ongoing efforts to address the crisis in Gaza, as well as its implications for regional peace, stability, and security,” the report added.
The UAE president also discussed with Rubio co-operation between the two countries, as well as ways to further enhance ties across various fields in pursuit of their joint interests.
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