French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius (Photo: Reuters)
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius is scheduled to meet with President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry on Saturday in Cairo to discuss re-awakening Palestinian-Israeli peace talks.
The French foreign minister will also meet with an Arab ministerial committee, formed in March during the Arab League summit and tasked with ending the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
Fabius will discuss with the ministers a draft resolution that France intends to present to the UN's Security Council to initiate peace talks.
He first announced the visit in May, adding that he will also visit Palestine and Israel and expressing his country's desire to "restart negotiations" between the two sides.
In December, peace talks fell through when the US voted against a Palestinian-drafted resolution calling for an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem and the establishment of a Palestinian state by late 2017.
France along with China and Russia were among the eight countries which voted in favour of the text, but the resolution fell short of winning the nine "yes" votes necessary for adoption within the 15-member Security Council
Although the resolution didn't pass, Israel summoned the French ambassador in Jerusalem over his country's support of the Palestinian bid.
Last week, the Palestinian unity government formed last year in an aim to heal rifts between Islamist Hamas, which controls the Gaza strip, and President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party resigned.
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