Jordanian king and Turkish president call for serious peace talks

Jordan's King Abdullah II and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Monday for new "serious and effective" peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, the royal palace said. Meeting in Amman, they urged "the resumption of serious and effective negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel to end the conflict on the basis of a two-state solution to assure an independent Palestinian state with June 1967 borders and east Jerusalem as capital". 

Talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been at a standstill since the failure of US mediation in the spring of 2014. "New peace negotiations must take place according to a precise timetable and be based on international resolutions," Erdogan and Abdullah said. 

They also expressed their "unequivocal rejection of any attempt to change the legal and historical situation in the Al-Aqsa mosque and any unilateral Israeli action threatening the identity of east Jerusalem". Jordan, the only Arab country apart from Egypt to have signed a peace treaty with Israel, is custodian of the Muslim holy sites in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem. 

The sensitive Al-Aqsa mosque compound in the eastern sector's Old City -- which Jews call the Temple Mount -- was the focus last month of a tense standoff after Israel introduced new security measures following an attack that killed two policemen. Jordan's king said earlier this month that a peaceful solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians was becoming more and more difficult. 

In January, US President Donald Trump came to power promising to push Israelis and Palestinians towards a peace deal, raising brief hopes among Palestinians that his unconventional approach could achieve results. But Palestinians have become increasingly frustrated by what they see as his negotiating team's one-sided approach. 

Abdullah and Erdogan on Monday also underlined the importance of a political solution to end the war in Syria. All diplomatic efforts to end to the conflict that has caused more than 330,000 deaths and displaced millions since 2011 have failed. However, the two leaders welcomed an agreement that followed trilateral talks between Jordan, the United States and Russia that resulted in a truce in three regions of southern Syria.