Kerry and Abbas meet to talk Israel-Palestine
February 21, 2016
In his meeting with the Palestinian president on Sunday, Kerry emphasized his desire to achieve a two-state solution to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
He also used the occasion to address the wave of violence that began in early October continues to stir the region. Twenty-seven Israelis, as well as an American and an Eritrean, have been killed in a spate of attacks by Palestinian civilians. Meanwhile, 176 Palestinians - many but not all of them attackers - have been killed by Israeli forces.
"The Secretary continued to urge for calm and a decrease in violence, incitement and inflammatory rhetoric," State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.
Kerry and Abbas met in Jordan, where the secretary of state was also set to meet King Abdullah II to discuss the ongoing war against the so-called Islamic State (IS) terrorist group.
blc/bw (AFP, Reuters)