Mike Pompeo
Mike PompeoReuters

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday that the United States will present its long-awaited Middle East peace plan within weeks.

Pompeo, responding to a question at Kansas State University, dismissed speculation of a substantial new delay in the publication of the plan.

"We've been consulting broadly throughout the region for two and a half years now and I think in the coming weeks we'll announce our vision," Pompeo said, according to the AFP news agency.

"And hopefully the world... will see that as a building block, a basis on which to move forward," he added.

Pompeo called Middle East peace "a difficult problem, one that ultimately those two peoples will have to resolve for themselves, but we've worked hard on that."

His comments follow US President Donald Trump’s recent remarks that he “probably will wait” to release the plan until after the Israeli elections in September, though he added that “we may put out pieces of it” before the elections.

Pompeo’s comments also come one day after Jason Greenblatt, Trump's adviser on the Middle East, resigned from his post.

Greenblatt cited personal reasons in leaving, with the father of six saying he wanted to spend more time with his family.

The outgoing US envoy said last month that the US will not release its plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs before the upcoming Israeli election, neither will parts of the plan be released prior to the election.

The Palestinian Authority (PA), which views Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state, has been at odds with the Trump administration and has boycotted it ever since it recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in late 2017 and relocated the US embassy to the city.

It has also rejected the US peace plan before it has even been unveiled, claiming it is biased in Israel’s favor.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)