US President Donald Trump talked up the prospects of peace between Israelis and Palestinians on Tuesday, saying he believed both sides were committed to an historic deal. "I am committed to trying to achieve a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians and I intend to do everything I can to help them achieve that goal," he said after an hour of talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. "President Abbas assures me he is ready to work towards that goal in good faith, and Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu has promised the same. I look forward to working with these leaders towards a lasting peace." Standing alongside Trump, Abbas said he was determined to deliver an agreement for all Palestinians. "I would like to reiterate our commitment to cooperate with you in order to make peace and forge an historic peace deal with the Israelis," he said, speaking through an interpreter. "And we would like to reassert our willingness to continue to work with you as partners in fighting terrorism in our region and in the world." Ahead of his visit to the Middle East, the second leg of a nine-day tour that began in Saudi Arabia and will move on to the Vatican, Italy and Belgium, administration officials indicated that Trump might talk about "Palestinian self-determination", a nod toward the ultimate objective of statehood. During meetings with Netanyahu on Monday, Trump focused attention on the threat from Iran but also talked about the opportunities for peace in the region. One of the long-standing regional proposals is a Saudi peace initiative that was first put forward in 2002 and has been re-endorsed several times since. In effect, it would offer Israel recognition by the Arab world and the "normalization" of relations in exchange for a full withdrawal from the territory Israel has occupied since the June 1967 Middle East war, including East Jerusalem. It also urges a "just settlement" of the Palestinian refugee problem. Netanyahu has expressed tentative support for parts of the initiative, but there are many caveats on the Israeli side, including how to resolve the ever more complex refugee issue and whether Israel would withdraw from the Golan Heights, strategic territory that Israel took from Syria in the 1967 war. Husam Zumlot, a former adviser to Abbas who is now the Palestinian ambassador in Washington, said the contours of any deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians were well known to both sides. If negotiations were to resume, they needed to be about the core issues, not talks about talks, he said. "President Trump is really, really serious and he thinks peace is possible. It's not easy, but we agree with him — peace is possible. All the stars are aligned," he told Reuters. "We are ready. Everything is ready." — Reuters
