Jordan’s King Abdullah II has urged a Israel and Palestine to resume peace talks, adding that failure to negotiate is increasing regional tensions.
In a speech on Monday to a delegation from the Washington-based Israeli Public Affairs committee, the king said that he hoped the Arab Spring would push Israel to “embrace peace”, according the Associated Press.
King Abdullah’s predecessor and father signed a peace accord with Israel in 1994. Jordan remains only one of two Arabs nations to have done so.
During his speech, Abdullah also urged Israel to cease settlement building activities, such as the new ‘E1’ construction, which critics say would cut the new State of Palestine in half.
In an interview with French press over the weekend, King Abdullah pushed European countries and the U.S. to urge Israel and Palestine to restart peace talks, which collapsed in 2010 of settlement building in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The king reaffirmed his position on the two-state solution, which he describes as the “only formula” to end the decades-old conflict between the two nations.
