PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron (R) shakes hands with Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas at the end of a joint press conference following their meeting at the Elysee presidential Palace on Friday. — AFP PARIS, Dec 22 (Agencies): Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday urged France and Europe to play a stronger role in peace efforts, insisting he'll no longer accept any U.S. plans for Mideast peace because of the Trump administration's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
Abbas met French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris a day after the U.N. General Assembly resolution denouncing President Donald Trump's decision.
During a news conference, Macron was careful not to take sides, saying "the American mistake was to want to unilaterally manage from afar a situation whose solution is in the hands of the Israelis and Palestinians."
Abbas said the United States is "no longer an honest mediator in the peace process."
"We will not accept any plan from the United States of America because of its bias and violation of the international law," he said.
Abbas also denounced the U.S threat to cut financial aid for countries who voted to back the U.N. resolution. "We call upon countries that did not recognize Palestine yet to do so to preserve the two-state solution before it's too late," he added.
Macron reaffirmed his disapproval of Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. The French president recalled he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month in Paris and urged him to make "courageous gestures" to help revive peace talks, including freezing Israel's construction of settlements on occupied lands.
Meanwhile, Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday said they both supported creating a Palestinian state, the Kremlin said the day after the UN rejected the decision by Washington to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
In a phonecall, the two leaders "discussed the situation of Middle East peace talks in the context of the resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly on the status of Jerusalem," the Kremlin said in a statement.
They "confirmed the mutual disposition to continue to assist in resolving the Palestine-Israeli conflict on the basis of international norms and realisation of the right of the Palestinian people to create an independent state," it said.
US President Donald Trump decided on December 6 to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
The status of the Holy City is one of the thorniest issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with both sides claiming it as their capital.
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