WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State John Kerry is returning to Jordan on his sixth trip to the region as he seeks to coax Israelis and Palestinians back to peace talks.
Kerry was to leave yesterday and travel to Amman, where he will meet a delegation from the Arab League and Jordanian leaders, a top US official said.
Since he took office on February 1, the US top diplomat has made a search for a long-elusive Middle East peace deal one of the top priorities of his tenure.
A Palestinian official said that Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas will meet Kerry in Jordan.
“It is expected that (Palestinian) president Abbas and Kerry will meet in Amman,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
“We are waiting to see what new ideas Kerry will bring with him after his last tour of the region,” he added.
But State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said she could not yet confirm whether Kerry would also meet Israeli or Palestinian leaders.
“Secretary of State John Kerry will travel to Amman, Jordan, departing this afternoon, or I should say this evening,” Psaki told reporters.
She said he would meet tomorrow with Jordanian and Arab League officials to “provide an update on Middle East peace” and they would also discuss the situation in Egypt and Syria.
She downplayed expectations of any announcement of a resumption of talks, stalled since September 2010, saying she could not make any predictions.
But she stressed: “The secretary would not be going back to the region if he did not feel there was an opportunity to keep making steps forward and providing an update to representatives of the Arab League is part of that.”
Last month the top US diplomat spent four days locked in intensive shuttle diplomacy between the Israeli and Palestinian leadership seeking to coax the two sides back into direct negotiations after a gap of nearly three years.
After talks in Jerusalem, Amman, and the West Bank city of Ramallah, Kerry said he felt “we have made real progress” adding “with a little more work, the start of final status negotiations could be within reach.”
AFP
