SEVERAL heads of governments and foreign ministers gathered at a United Nations conference yesterday to urge the world to work toward a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, but the US and Israel boycotted the event.
Foreign Minister Dr Abdullatif Al Zayani represented Bahrain at the conference.
Addressing the conference, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud urged all countries to support the conference goal of a roadmap laying out the parameters to a Palestinian state while ensuring Israel’s security.
“We must ensure that it does not become another exercise in well-meaning rhetoric,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in opening remarks. “It can and must serve as a decisive turning point – one that catalyses irreversible progress towards ending the occupation and realising our shared aspiration for a viable two-state solution.”
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told the conference: “We must work on the ways and means to go from the end of the war in Gaza to the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, at a time when this war is jeopardising the stability and security of the entire region.”
Barrot told newspaper La Tribune Dimanche in an interview published on Sunday that he will use the conference to push other countries to join France in recognising a Palestinian state.
France intends to recognise a Palestinian state in September at the annual UN General Assembly session.
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