DOHA: The blockade of Qatar has continued for too long and leaders of the Gulf states believe it’s time to solve the crisis, Jared Kushner, senior adviser to US President Donald Trump, has said after a meeting with Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in Doha on Wednesday.
Kushner, along with a delegation, was in Doha as part of a Gulf tour looking for more Arab support for ties with Israel following a US-brokered accord last month between the United Arab Emirates and Israel to normalise ties.
“We had wonderful discussions in Qatar, which is a very developed country, and in the past it has had discussions with Israel,” Kushner told Al Jazeera.
“During the meeting, they reviewed the close strategic relations between the State of Qatar and the United States of America, in addition to discussing a number of issues of common concern, especially the peace process in the Middle East region,” Qatar News Agency reported.
In the meeting, the Amir told Kushner that Doha supports a two-state solution, with East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state, to end the conflict with Israel.
The Amir said that Qatar remained committed to the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, in which Arab nations offered Israel normalised ties in return for a statehood deal with the Palestinians and full Israeli withdrawal from territory captured in the 1967 war.
The UAE is the third Arab country to reach an agreement with Israel after Egypt and Jordan. Kushner hopes another Arab country will normalise ties within months.
On the Palestinian issue, Kushner said that there was a security plan that guaranteed security for Palestinians and Israelis, and there was an offer on the table for Palestinians, and “we hope that they communicate and accept it.”
“I tell the Palestinian people that the world wants you to have a better life, but you must have a leadership capable of that,” Kushner said.