PLO hopes to cooperate with new US administration to achieve peace with Israel

Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) said on Friday that Palestinians are willing to work and cooperate with the new US administration under President Donald Trump to achieve security and peace in the Middle East region and ending the conflict with Israel based on the two-state solution.

Secretary General of the PLO, Saeb Erekat, made the remarks in the wake of Trump's official inauguration, hoping that Trump would seriously turn the talk about the two-state solution to action on the ground and not to take any steps that would undermine this basis, Xinhua news agency reported.

The PLO official called on Trump not to fulfil the promise he launched during his electoral campaign to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, calling it a "destruction of the two-state solution and the peace process".

Erekat underscored that security, peace and stability in the region will not come unless the Israeli occupation that started in 1967 comes to an end, with the establishment of the Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital to live side by side with the state of Israel in peace.

He urged Trump and his new administration to take a serious stance against Israeli settlements and exert pressure to halt it.

Erekat also highlighted that the Israeli decision to annex East Jerusalem as null and void and was never recognised by any of the former US administrations since 1967.

He affirmed that the new US administration must be aware of the importance of settling the Palestinian cause to achieve security and stability in the Middle East.

Trump was sworn in on Friday as the 45th President of the US.

--IANS

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