Kerry to Outline Peace Plan between Israelis and Palestinians

US Secretary of State John Kerry is to outline in a speech on Wednesday the Obama administration’s vision of a final Israeli-Palestinian accord based on bitter lessons learned from an effort that collapsed in 2014.

    US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said at a press briefing that Kerry would "touch on" the Israel situation but the speech would be more broadly about the politics of region.

    Toner said Kerry would also explain how the resolution's message would be implemented and outline America's "next steps". "I don't want to lean into it that there's going to be some kind of push behind this," Toner said. "I think this is, again, Secretary Kerry sharing his vision for how we can resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," he said. 

    A senior State Department official told reporters that Kerry will discuss the abstention when he speaks at the State Department at 11 a.m. ET (1600 GMT). "We believe that with the two-state solution in peril, it is important to share the deeper understanding we have developed of both sides' bottom lines during intensive consultations in recent years," the official said. 

    The speech will also address what the official called "misleading" accusations by Israeli officials that the Obama administration drafted and forced the UN Security Council resolution to a vote.

    The United States on Friday broke with a longstanding approach of diplomatically shielding Israel and abstained on a United Nations Security Council resolution that passed with 14 countries in favor and none against.

    State Department spokesman Mark Toner on Tuesday said the United States hoped the U.N. vote would serve as a "wake-up call" that settlements are a detriment to a two-state solution.

Source: QNA