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Trump: Peace Possible and Should Be Achieved | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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US President Donald Trump (L) and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas deliver remarks after their meeting at the Presidential Palace in the West Bank city of Bethlehem May 23, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst


Tel Aviv, Bethlehem- US President Donald Trump concluded his visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority on Tuesday after announcing commitment to seeking a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians, a matter which he said was “possible and should be achieved.”

In a speech delivered at the end of his visit, Trump repeated a sentence he had mentioned six times during his trip to Israel, when he praised the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. “King Salman of Saudi Arabia could not have been kinder, and I will tell you, he’s a very wise, wise man,” he said.

Speaking at the Israel Museum, the US president said: “The only question is when nations will decide that they have had enough — enough bloodshed, enough killing. Change must come from within. No father wants his children to grow up in a world where terrorists roam free. No civilized nation can tolerate the massacre of innocents with chemical weapons.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump visited Bethlehem where he was welcomed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

While Abbas insisted on his position to demand the two-state solution along the borders of 1967 — the state of Palestine with its capital as East Jerusalem, living alongside the state of Israel in peace and security and good neighborhood – Trump did not speak about this solution and did not mention the term “Palestinian state,” among other issues he missed to tackle.

The president had arrived to Bethlehem in a 60-car convoy, which passed near the Israeli military towers. Trump also saw the separation wall that encircles the city, and his convoy had to drive in the direction of the wall to the north before being able to continue his route to Abbas’ headquarters.