Mme Catherine Colonna, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, is today travelling to Berlin to take part in a meeting with her German, Egyptian and Jordanian counterparts on the situation in the Middle East. It will be their seventh meeting in this format since February 2020.
With the situation in Israel, in Jerusalem and in the occupied Palestinian Territories continuing to deteriorate in a worrying way, Mme Colonna will reiterate France’s determination to work towards de-escalation and contribute to any efforts aimed at restoring political dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians, based on the two-State solution and the internationally-agreed parameters.
In this regard, Mme Colonna will signal the importance of reopening political prospects for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and of promoting any action which may contribute to this, including through practical trust-building measures between Israelis and Palestinians. She will thus pay tribute to the efforts of Egypt and Jordan, which, alongside the United States, brought the parties together in Aqaba and Sharm el-Sheikh in February and March 2023. France fully supports this process. The commitments made in this framework must now be followed up.
In this respect, Mme Colonna will recall the need to refrain from all unilateral measures – in particular with regard to settlement activity – that are liable to fuel the spiral of violence and undermine any prospect of a two-State solution with Jerusalem as the capital of each. She will also emphasize the need to strictly maintain the historical status quo on holy sites in Jerusalem and the importance of Jordan’s specific role in this regard.
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Originally published at https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/country-files/germany/events/article/visit-to-berlin-by-catherine-colonna-minister-for-europe-and-foreign-affairs
