Asselborn meets Palestinian PM to discuss Middle East politics

(MSS) Palestine PM Rami Hamdallah and Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn met Tuesday to discuss the prospects of forming a new Palestinian government.

The meeting to debate the political situation in Palestine and the Middle East was requested by Hamdallah, according to the Foreign Ministry.

In June, Hamdallah was sworn in as Palestine's new Prime Minister.

However, less than three weeks afterwards he offered his resignation due to a “conflict over authority” within his cabinet, government sources said.

His resignation was accepted by government officials, but in August President Mahmoud Abbas gave Hamdallah five weeks to form a new cabinet, which was one of the topics the former Prime Minister wished to discuss with Asselborn at the meeting.

Since 2007 Luxembourg has been supporting Palestine with 7 million euros annually and besides from talks on Palestinian politics, the ministers discussed ways to further strengthen the Luxembourg-Palestinian relationship.

In the past, Asselborn has spoken out against Israel's settlement policy and supported Palestine's bid for observer status at the UN.

At the meeting on Wednesday Asselborn and Hamdallah reportedly discussed the general state of the peace process in the Middle East and US Secretary of State John Kerry's efforts to pursue peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian authority.

Kerry has been shuttling between Jerusalem and the West Bank for several months aiming to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, and on Sunday he met with President Abbas to review the progress of the peace talks and how to best carry on.

According to Kerry, both sides remain steadfast in their commitment to continuing the talks, however, no details of the meeting were due to be released to the press.