OIC rejects Trump's Mideast plan

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation on Monday rejected US President Donald Trump's peace plan for the Middle East, calling on its 57 member states not to help implement it.

The pan-Islamic body, which represents more than 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide, "rejects this US-Israeli plan as it does not meet the minimum aspirations and legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and contradicts the terms of reference of the peace process", it said in a statement. A meeting of foreign ministers at OIC headquarters in the Saudi city of Jeddah called on "all member states not (to) deal with this plan or cooperate with the US administration efforts to enforce it in any way or form". Under the US plan unveiled last week, Israel would retain control of the disputed city of Jerusalem as its "undivided capital" and annex settlements on Palestinian lands.

Trump's plan suggests that Israel would retain control of the contested city of Jerusalem as its "undivided capital" but Palestinians would be allowed to declare a capital adjacent to Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

The OIC reiterated its support for east Jerusalem as capital of a future Palestinian state, stressing its "Arab and Islamic character". It said peace would "only be achieved with the end of the Israeli occupation, the full withdrawal from the territory of the State of Palestine in particular the holy city of Al-Quds Al-Sharif (Jerusalem) and the other Arab territories occupied since (the) June 1967 (Middle East war)".