(Reuters)With President Trump’s Middle East peace envoys looking on, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday accused the Trump administration of abdicating its commitment to a peace settlement and an independent Palestinian state. Abbas urged an international framework for negotiations involving the Palestinian Authority, Israel and the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, including the United States. Abbas entered moments before speaking, skipping the greetings among ambassadors, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres and the U.N. Middle East representative, Nikolay Mladenov. [Kushner says Mideast peace is essential to thwarting Iran and Islamist extremism]Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state. [Trump: U.S. expenditures in Middle East have been ‘a mistake’]Trump has recently cast doubt on his own Middle East peace project.

Source: Washington Post February 20, 2018 21:13 UTC