Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas held a private audience with Pope Francis on Thursday and met with top Vatican officials, who emphasized the importance of resuming peace talks with Israel.
According to Times of Israel, Abbas, who has met the pontiff several times before, held talks with the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and de facto foreign minister Paul Gallagher on a trip to Rome that also included a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi.
The Vatican later said, “it was stressed that it is absolutely necessary to reactivate direct dialogue in order to achieve a two-state solution, also with the help of more vigorous effort on the part of the international community.” According to CNA, “During the cordial talks in the Secretariat of State … the need to promote human brotherhood and peaceful coexistence among the various faiths was acknowledged,” a Vatican statement said.
“With regard to the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians, it was stressed that it is absolutely necessary to reactivate direct dialogue in order to achieve a two-state solution, also with the help of more vigorous effort on the part of the international community.”
According to the Vatican, the secretariat of state reiterated that Jerusalem must be recognized as “a place of encounter and not of conflict,” and that its status as “a Holy City for all three Abrahamic religions” must be preserved. “Finally, attention turned to the urgency of working for peace, avoiding the use of weapons, and combating all forms of extremism and fundamentalism,” the Vatican statement said.
According to American Magazine, Francis gave Mr. Abbas a bronze relief plaque depicting two hands holding each other, with the colonnades of St. Peter’s Square in the background, as well as showing a woman with a child and a boat of migrants. The plaque had the Italian inscription, “Let’s fill the hands with other hands.”
The pope also gave Mr. Abbas several key documents of his pontificate: the message for the World Day of Peace 2021; the Document on Human Fraternity, which he signed with the Grand Imam of Al Azhar in Abu Dhabi in 2019; and the book Statio Orbis, which documents his prayer and talk in St. Peter’s Square on March 27, 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in Italy. The Palestinian president gave the pope a book on the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem and a representation of the grotto of the Nativity.
