White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Monday said that the United States remains committed to the efforts to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
In her daily press briefing, Huckabee Sanders said the meetings last week between President Donald Trump’s Senior Advisor Jared Kushner and Special Representative Jason Greenblatt and Middle East leaders were productive.
“They met with a number of officials and principals in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Israel, and Qatar last week,” she told reporters.
“They discussed the situation in Gaza as well as the next stages of the peace effort. We're going to continue those conversations and we're committed to the peace effort, and we're going to keep working forward. But those conversations were productive,” added Huckabee Sanders.
Kushner and Greenblatt’s meetings came as the Trump Administration prepares to present its peace plan. The two did not visit Ramallah or meet any PA officials.
The reason for this is that PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas has refused to consider the Trump administration an honest broker for peace negotiations with Israel since Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital last December, and has boycotted American officials since that time.
Earlier on Monday, Trump declined to offer a timetable for announcing his proposed Middle East peace plan, saying only that "progress" had been made in tackling the complex issue.
Speaking after a meeting at the White House with King Abdullah II of Jordan, Trump hedged when asked by reporters to give a schedule for rolling out the peace plan that Kushner is working on.
"A lot of progress has been made in the Middle East, a lot," he said.