VATICAN CITY: Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet at the Vatican and pray for peace together at an unprecedented gathering on June 8, the Vatican said yesterday.
In one of his boldest political gestures since his election in March, 2013, Pope Francis invited the two leaders to come to the Vatican and hold a joint prayer meeting with him during the pontiff’s trip to the Holy Land last week.
Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the two had accepted that the meeting would take place on a Sunday afternoon. That morning the pope will be presiding at a Pentacost Sunday service in St Peter’s Square.
The pope, who made the invitation at the end of a Mass in Bethlehem last Saturday, told reporters on the plane returning to Rome that he was not getting directly involved in the stalled Mideast peace process.
But he said he hoped the prayer meeting, which comes after flailing diplomatic efforts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, would help create an atmosphere that would help the eventual resumption of talks.
The pope said a rabbi and an Islamic official would be present, without giving details. The meeting is expected to take place in either the guest house where the pope lives in the Vatican or part of the modern complex used for papal general audiences.
The offer came just a month after US-led peace talks collapsed amid bitter, mutual recrimination.
It was not clear, however, how the prayer encounter could break decades of mutual mistrust.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the key Israeli decision-maker, will not be at the prayer meeting.
REUTERS
