BICOM

US Secretary of State John Kerry will today deliver an address on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, just days after Washington enabled the passage of a United Nations’ (UN) Security Council resolution criticising Israeli settlements.

US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said it is Kerry’s “duty in his remaining weeks and days as Secretary of State to lay out what he believes is a way towards a two-state solution” and that “it’s always important to keep the process moving forward”.

Toner added: “We haven’t given up on this and we don’t think the Israelis and Palestinians should either.”

Kerry is expected to deliver the speech to an invited audience, mainly of diplomats at the State Department. Kerry spearheaded several rounds of talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), which were frozen in April 2014. A month earlier, he presented a “framework” document, which Israel approved with reservations, but to which the PA never responded.

Israeli leaders are concerned that the principles which Kerry outlines today will be similar to the text of Friday’s UN Security Council resolution, which called on Israel to “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities” and termed settlements “a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-state solution”. There is also speculation that Kerry’s vision will be further discussed at a French-spearheaded peace summit on 15 January and possibly codified in a further UN Security Council resolution.

Israel’s Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan criticised Kerry’s upcoming address. He said yesterday: “It’s pathetic to present a [peace] plan at the last minute when he [Kerry] hasn’t managed in changing anything for his entire time in office.”

He predicted that Kerry’s speech “will make sure that the Palestinians won’t agree to any sort of negotiations [with Israel] in the coming years”.