(UDHAYAM, COLOMBO) – US President Donald Trump is visiting Israel and the Palestinian territories, as he continues his first foreign trip.
He flies in from Saudi Arabia, a key US ally, where he gave a speech to Arab and Muslim leaders at a summit.
Mr Trump will hold talks with both Israeli and Palestinian leaders during the course of his two-day stop.
The president has called an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement “the ultimate deal”, but has been vague about what form it should take.
He has said he prefers to leave it to both sides to decide between them in direct talks.
At a summit in Riyadh on Sunday, Mr Trump called on Arab and Muslim leaders to take the lead in combating Islamist militants, urging them to “drive them out of this earth”.
He singled out Iran, saying it had “fuelled the fires of sectarian conflict and terror” in the region for decades.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif later hit back on Twitter, suggesting the US was milking Saudi Arabia for billions of dollars in newly-signed arms deals.
In his speech, Mr Trump also stated again that he believed peace between Israelis and Palestinians was possible.
