The European Union and Norway convened a special session of the International Donor Group for Palestine in Brussels on Wednesday, in an attempt to revive peace talks with Israel.
Ministers of the 15-member organization, which includes the United States, met in the European capital for a meeting hosted by EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and chaired by Norwegian Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Soereide.
Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah and Israeli Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi also attended the meeting, along with representatives from Egypt, Jordan and others.
The donor nations' Ad Hoc Liaison Committee serves as the principal policy-level coordination mechanism for developing assistance to the Palestinian Authority. It seeks to promote dialogue between donors, the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government.
Mogherini and Soreide reiterated that the two-state solution remains the only realistic way forward in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the stance of the European Union towards Jerusalem remains unchanged.
During the three-hour meeting, each party discussed on how to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and accelerate peace negotiations.
Mogherini said the meeting was the first opportunity for relevant parties to sit together since the unprecedented December announcement by U.S. President Donald Trump in which he recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and vowed to move the U.S. Embassy to the city from Tel Aviv.
"The basis and objective of our engagement is and remains the two-state solution, with Jerusalem as the future capital of both states – the State of Israel and the State of Palestine. Any framework for negotiations must be multilateral and must involve all players, all partners that are essential to this process. A process without one or the other would simply not work, would simply not be realistic," Mogherini said.
"Nothing without the United States, nothing with the United States alone," Mogherini told reporters in Brussels.
The EU announced during the meeting that it will earmark €42 million ($52 million) in aid for Palestinians, which comes after the United States declared earlier this month it would withhold some $65 million in aid funds to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency.
