BICOM

Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday discussed the stalled Middle East peace talks, ahead of a planned trip by the monarch to Washington and a Quartet meeting next week.

“We have discussed key current issues, foremost the peace process, how can it be resumed and the movement for pushing forward the peace process,” Abbas told reporters after the meeting in Amman. The visit by the Palestinian President follows a visit by Israeli President Shimon Peres last week, in which the two leaders addressed, “ways of surmounting the obstacles that impede the revival of peace talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis on the base of the two-state vision,” a statement from the royal court said.

Peres’ visit itself came a week after King Abdullah made a rare visit to the West Bank, in which he met with Abbas and called on him to renew peace talks with Israel. King Abdullah II is trying to get Israel and the Palestinians to resume peace talks that Abbas abandoned in September 2010. Abbas has said that unless Israel enacts another settlement building freeze he would not return to the negotiating table.

The “Quartet” of mediators that includes the US, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations plans to meet on the 14 December, whilst no official date has been set next week for King Abdullah’s visit to Washington.