Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met secretly with the CIA chief in the West Bank, Palestinian officials said today, as they expressed concern over the Trump administration's suggestion that a two-state solution to the conflict with Israel is optional.
Mike Pompeo and Abbas held talks yesterday at the Palestinian government compound in the city of Ramallah, the first high-level contacts between the Palestinian leader and administration officials, said two senior officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters about the meeting.
The White House had no comment.
One of the Palestinian officials said Abbas briefed Pompeo on Palestinian positions ahead of today's White House talks between President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Palestinian leadership had previously expressed concern it would be sidelined by an administration seen as being closely aligned with Israel.
The Palestinians were given a new cause for concern when a White House official told reporters in Washington that the two-state solution -- a cornerstone of American diplomacy for more than two decades -- was not the only option for resolving the conflict.
The official said yesterday that Trump is eager to begin facilitating a peace deal between the two sides and hopes to bring them together soon.
But the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the meeting beforehand, said it will be up to the Israelis and Palestinians to determine what peace will entail -- and that peace, not a Palestinian state alongside Israel, is the goal.
It remains unclear if the comments signal a shift away from longstanding US support for Palestinian statehood.
The Palestinians seek a state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast War.
The contours of a solution emerged in previous US-led talks, including a border based on the 1967 lines that would include mutual land swaps to accommodate some of the larger Jewish settlements close to Israel. A final deal has remained elusive.
Support for a two-state solution was reaffirmed by representatives of dozens of countries, including the US, at an international conference in Paris last month, before Trump's inauguration.
Netanyahu is under growing pressure from right-wing Cabinet ministers to abandon a two-state solution - an idea he publicly endorsed several years ago, albeit with reservations.
Critics say that in any case, Israel's policy of settlement expansion on war-won land is making such a partition deal increasingly difficult.
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