French President to Visits Indonesia for Discussion on Palestinian Issue and Other Topics

Jakarta, 24 Jumadil Akhir 1438/23 March 2017  (MINA)  – French President Francois Hollande is slated to visit Indonesia later this month to strengthen bilateral cooperation, with the Palestinian issue will be one of the topics that will be discussed during the meeting between the two countries.

“We saw there was a great effort by France to help end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and this will be on the agenda during the French president’s visit to Indonesia,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Armanatha Nasir, said in Jakarta, Thursday (23/3).

The man who is familiarly called Tata added that this discussion will be the follow up to the Israeli-Palestinian peace summit in Paris in June 2016.

At the summit, Hollande expressed the need for revived peace talks between the two parties deadlocked since 2014.

However, Israel rejected the outcome of the meeting and called for direct negotiations.

Negotiations  stalled due to Israel’s continued settlement activity in the occupied territories while negotiations are ongoing. Palestinians say Israel has no intention to negotiate.

At that time, France had planned to recognize Palestine as a state recognized by the United Nations if the negotiations between the two sides stopped. The statement was withdrawn following a statement of objections from Israel.

In addition to Palestine, the two leaders will discuss a number of bilateral cooperation such as maritime, creative economy, smartcity and the signing of a letter of intent in the field of energy and renewable energy.

The value of trade between the two countries has increased in 2016 to 2.34 billion US dollars from 2.3 billion US dollars in 2015.  (L/R04/RS5)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)