On Monday 8 January, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, announced that he had agreed with Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, to continue work on the Peace Day Effort initiative for the Middle East, which was launched in September, before the massacres of 7 October and the war in Gaza.
During their meeting, the two men discussed this peace initiative and the measures taken to translate the international consensus on the two-state solution into action.
“And I am coming back to Brussels with the commitment between the European and the Arab world to work for that [a two-state solution, editor’s note], and to avoid a war expanding in the region. It is in nobody’s interest [to have] another war in the border with Lebanon, it is in nobody’s interest to jeopardise the traffic, the transportation of the ships in the Red Sea”, explained Mr Borrell in a statement from Riyadh.
The High Representative announced on X (formerly Twitter) that he had invited the Prince to attend the Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels on 22 January.
Mr Borrell reiterated that the only way to prevent the war from spreading to the region was to “look for a political solution for the conflict between Israel and Palestine”. “And this will require a strong commitment of the international community and to start with, the European and the Arab people,” he added, pointing out that, for 30 years, the international community had been advocating a two-State solution “without doing a lot, or sometimes nothing in order to make it possible”. “And today it is more difficult than 30 years ago when the Oslo agreements [have been concluded, editor’s note]. But even if it is difficult, we have to try”, he pleaded. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)