Kerry "reassures" PM Netanyahu over Paris conference

Israel said on Sunday that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to "reassure" him of no follow-up steps following the Paris peace conference.

The international peace conference in Paris kicked off on Sunday, with foreign ministers from nearly 70 countries attending plus five international organizations, the European Union, the United Nations, the Arab League, the Islamic Conference Organization and the African Union.

However, no representatives from Palestine or Israel attended the conference.

The Israeli Prime Minister's Office released a statement saying that Kerry briefed Netanyahu during a phone call on "the moves the U.S. was taking to soften the wording of the Paris communique."

The statement added that Kerry promised Netanyahu that "there will be no resulting consequences to the conference, neither at the United Nations Security Council nor at the conference itself."

Kerry also assured Netanyahu that "the U.S. will oppose any proposal that may be put forward to the Security Council," according to the statement.

Netanyahu slammed the conference on Sunday as "useless."

"It is coordinated between the French and the Palestinians," he told his weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.

"Its goal is to try and force terms upon Israel which conflict with our national needs... I must say that this conference is among the last twitches of yesterday's world. Tomorrow's world will be different - and it is very near," he added, in an apparent reference to the upcoming swearing-in ceremony of President-elect Donald Trump.

Palestinians, however, welcomed the conference as an international effort toward realizing peace between Palestinians and Israelis.

In an emailed press statement, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry called for the formation of an international team supportive of the conference outcomes.

The ministry said implementing the conference outcomes requires a wide scale international effort to support it.

The ministry also expressed anger over Israel's continued violations undermining the two-state solution, particularly through expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank, land which Israel occupied in 1976, together with the Gaza Strip.

The meeting was held based on an initiative launched by France a few months ago to hold an international conference to probe international systems toward ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, based on the two-state solution.

Israel declared it is against the French initiative, saying it is committed to bilateral negotiations to attain peace without preconditions.

Peace talks between Israel and Palestine have been stalled since April 2014, following the nine-months-long U.S.-sponsored talks which led to no tangible results.

source: Xinhua