Egypt seeks to host Palestinian-Israeli summit: Diplomat

By Hussein Mahmoud

CAIRO

Egypt plans to host a summit between the Palestinians and Israelis in Cairo ahead of a proposed international conference in Paris, a Palestinian diplomat said Tuesday.

“There are Egyptian efforts to host a Palestinian-Israeli summit in Cairo in the coming period,” Palestinian Consul-General in Alexandria, Hoassam al-Dabbas, told Anadolu Agency.

He said no date has been set for the summit.

On Sunday, a high-level Israeli delegation visited Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials in an effort to revive peace talks between Palestine and Israel, which collapsed in 2014.

In May, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called on both Israelis and the Palestinians to relaunch their peace talks.

While Israel has rejected a French initiative for a peace conference, it has been more open to Egypt's proposals to host bilateral peace talks based on the Arab Peace Initiative, which would potentially see Israel recognized by the Arab nations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on different occasions that he would not accept the Arab initiative's key condition that Israel withdraw from land occupied during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, including East Jerusalem.

Egypt was the first Arab country to recognize Israel after signing a peace treaty with the Jewish state in 1979.