Khaberni - Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Minister Ayman Safadi, arrived in the French capital Paris on Thursday to participate in ministerial meetings on the Palestinian issue.
Safadi met with the French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, Jean Noël Barrot, at the French Foreign Ministry headquarters in Paris.
Quintet meetings
The announcement of a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel predominates the meetings in Paris regarding the future of Gaza Strip. However, France sees this meeting as an opportunity to secure concrete commitments towards a lasting peace and a two-state solution.
Hamas and Israel reached a ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, which includes the release of detainees in the Gaza Strip in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners under a plan by U.S. President Donald Trump to end the ongoing war of two years. The deal will be later signed on Thursday in Egypt according to a Palestinian source familiar with the file.
Simultaneously, foreign ministers of the "European Quintet" (Germany, Spain, France, Italy, and Britain) and the "Arab Quintet" (Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar), in addition to their counterparts from the European Union, Canada, and Turkey, are meeting in the French capital for talks on "the day after" the war.
The meeting is scheduled at five o'clock Paris Time (15:00 GMT) and was planned days before the announcement of the agreement. It is intended to allow "the continuation of the efforts made by France for many months to end the war in Gaza and pave the way for peace," according to a French diplomatic source.
There is no doubt that the latest developments slightly shift the equation, but "they reflect positively on the meeting eventually, as it will enable ministers to focus on concrete commitments for the post-war period," as per another European diplomatic source.
The French Foreign Ministry stated in a bulletin issued on Thursday that "this will allow working on implementing the peace plan and activating the essential standards for +the next day+,” which are security, governance, and reconstruction.
