Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas gestures during his meeting with Britain’s Prince William in Ramallah, June 27, 2018. (photo credit: ALAA BADARNEH/POOL VIA REUTERS)
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The Palestinians are serious in their wish to achieve peace with Israel, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told Prince William on Wednesday.
Prince William and Abbas met in the Palestinian presidential compound in Ramallah in the first visit of its kind to the West Bank by a member of the British royal family.
“We want to reach peace through negotiations,” Abbas told Prince William.
Abbas expressed hope that the prince’s next visit would be “after the Palestinians had achieved their independence.”
Abbas said he believed that the visit would strengthen friendly relations between the Palestinians and the British people.
Abbas pointed out that Britain had recently provided aid to the United Nations Works and Relief Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA).
The meeting in Ramallah was attended by a number of senior Palestinian officials, including Saeb Erekat and Hanan Ashrawi.
Prince William, for his part, said that he was delighted to visit Ramallah and meet with Palestinians, according to a statement released by the PA president’s office.
“I’m very glad our two countries work so closely together and have had success stories with education and relief work in the past, so, long may that continue,” William told Abbas at the start of their meeting.
“My sentiments are the same as yours in hoping that there is a lasting peace in the region,” the prince said.
On Tuesday, President Reuven Rivlin publicly asked the prince to bring Abbas “a message of peace” and tell him it is time to find a way to “build confidence” between Israel and the Palestinians.
Rivlin’s position is largely ceremonial and in remarks released to the media after his own meeting with William earlier that day Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made no such request.
“The Palestinian side is committed to the peace process with the Israelis, so both states could live peacefully together within the borders of 1967,” Abbas said in his public remarks at his meeting with William.
After meeting Abbas, William was scheduled to meet Palestinian youngsters.
Until now it had been British policy not to make an official royal visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories until the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was resolved.
“It’s not a time when he can come and celebrate success in the Middle East peace process or anything of that sort, but it is a time when we can show our interest in the region,” Philip Hall, Britain’s consul-general in Jerusalem, told Reuters before William flew to the Middle East.
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