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Jared Kushner meets Saudi crown prince for Middle East talks

Kushner has said plan for building peace between Israel and Palestine is almost complete
Jared Kushner on day US President Donald Trump received Order of Abdulaziz al-Saud medal in Riyadh, 20 May 2017 (AFP)

US President Donald Trump's son-in-law and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner met on Wednesday with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman about Israel and Palestine, as Kushner readies the administration's Middle East peace plan.

At the meeting, also attended by US Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt, they discussed strengthening ties between the United States and Saudi Arabia and providing humanitarian relief to Gaza, according to a statement from the White House. Kushner held a similar meeting on Tuesday with Jordan's King Abdullah.

Kushner and Greenblatt have said the plan they are drawing up for building peace between Israel and Palestine is almost complete. The potential for peace was thrown into doubt last month when Trump's decision to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem sparked mass protests in which dozens of Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces.

Palestinians had consented in several agreements with Israel to accept East Jerusalem as their future capital, and that the city would be a final-status issue.

The US embassy was opened on 14 May, one day before the Palestinians commemorate their mass displacement in the 1948 war surrounding the creation of Israel, which they refer to as the Nakba (catastrophe).

The Palestinian Authority, which has frozen contacts with Washington because of its perceived bias, said on Saturday that US efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are "doomed to fail".

PA spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina told reporters that the regional tour by Kushner and Greenblatt would produce "no results".

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