Kremlin aide slams US policy on Palestine

By Elena Teslova

MOSCOW (AA) - U.S actions have crippled efforts to launch talks between Israel and Palestine, Russian presidential aide said Wednesday.

"We believe that the U.S. unilateral actions undermine the international efforts to restart direct talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis," Yury Ushakov said.

"I mean, in first turn, Washington's decision not to consider Israeli settlement activities a violation of international law, as well as the recognition by the Americans of Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights and the relocation of the Embassy to Jerusalem," he said.

The issue will be a topic "thoroughly examined" at a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Jan. 23 in Bethlehem, he added.

In a series of decisions, the U.S. administration of Donald Trump violated basic postulates, drafted to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In late 2017, Trump unilaterally recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, triggering a world outcry.

In May 2019, he signed an order officially recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, which were seized from Syria in 1967.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the U.S. would no longer consider Israeli settlements in the West Bank as illegal "per se" in November 2019.

International law views the West Bank and East Jerusalem as occupied territories and considers all Israeli settlement building activity there as illegal.