Top EU diplomat: Trump Mideast plan unlikely to succeed

The European Union’s foreign policy chief says he does not think that US President Donald Trump’s initiative for resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict stands the chance to succeed.

Josep Borrell made the remarks after meeting with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi in Amman on Sunday, the EU reported on its website. The European top diplomat was on a short tour of the region, expected to take him to Tehran next.

“The experience over the past 50 years has shown that without agreement among all sides, no peace plan has the chance to succeed,” he said amid uniform Palestinian rejection of the scheme.

Trump had announced the scheme, which he has controversially named as the “deal of the century”, years ago but withheld its details.

He unveiled the scheme’s outlines on Tuesday, saying it features recognition of the occupied Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel’s “capital” -- although Palestinians want the city’s eastern part as the capital of their future state.

Trump outlines contentious Palestine scheme, says Quds will be Israel’s ‘undivided capital’

Trump repeats his hugely-controversial endorsement of occupied Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel’s “capital” as he outlines his administration’s self-styled Mideast plan.

Trump also said that under the plan, Israel would be annexing the settlements that it has been building in the West Bank since occupying the Palestinian territory in 1967.

This is while all previous foreign-mediated agreements between the Palestinians and Israelis as well as repeated United Nations resolutions have mandated Tel Aviv to withdraw behind the 1967 borders.

Palestinians, who had already spurned the plot, repeated their opposition to it soon after Trump’s announcement.

On Saturday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas cut relations with Washington and Tel Aviv in response to Trump’s announcement, saying his decision followed US and Israeli "disavowal of signed agreements and international legitimacy."

Borrell said, “The US plan challenges many of the internationally-agreed parameters: the 1967 border, as agreed by both parties.”

“To find a sustainable way forward, both parties need to come back to the table,” he added.

The European official also met with King Abdullah II, who reaffirmed Jordan's “firm stance” towards the Palestinian cause, Jordan’s official news agency Petra reported.

Any potential Palestinian state, the monarch added, should be an “independent” one demarcated based on the 1967 borders, with East al-Quds as its capital.

Borrell is expected in the Iranian capital on Monday for the first visit by the top EU diplomat after taking office. He is to meet with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and other Iranian officials.

The visit is significant because it comes at a time when the European signatories to a 2015 nuclear deal — France, Britain and Germany — have failed to meet their commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Last month, the trio gave into Washington’s pressure and triggered a dispute mechanism devised in the accord which amounts to a formal accusation that Tehran had broken the terms of the agreement.

The European measure could lead to the restoration of anti-Iran sanctions, which had been lifted by the JCPOA.

In an interview with German weekly news magazine, Der Spiegel, Zarif said last month, "It’s a disaster for Europe to be so subservient to the US. Anybody who accepts unilateralism is helping it."

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