The US presidential administration may postpone the publication of the Mideast peace plan to November 2019, US special envoy to the Middle East Jason Greenblatt said during an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
Mr Greenblatt added that the US peace team could have published the plan this summer, but changed its plans after Israel set the date for new elections in September, the newspaper says.
Also, the envoy noted that he shares the view of US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, who said in an interview last week that Israel has a right to annex parts of the West Bank.
The Mideast peace plan was expected to be published during the international economic conference in Manama, Bahrain on 25-26 June.
The development of the plan has been overseen by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. No details have been unveiled about the initiative, although Mr Kushner once said that it won’t rely on a "two-state solution", an approach favoured by previous US administrations. The "two-state solution" proposes that both Israel and the Palestinian Authority have the right to independence and that the latter should be recognised as a sovereign state within the borders that existed before the 1967 war.
It was also revealed in some media reports that the economic segment of the plan would focus on attracting investments in the Palestinian territories. However, the Palestinian Authority rejected the US peace plan as biased in favour of Israel and said it won’t attend the summit in Bahrain.
The Palestinian Authority has been seeking diplomatic recognition as an independent state on the territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Israel does not recognise the Palestinian Authority as a sovereign entity and continues to build settlements on the territories that it gained control over after the 1967 war.
