Yahoo – AFP,
29 May 2014
Israeli
President Shimon Peres (L) greets Pope Francis during a welcome
ceremony at Ben
Gurion airport on May 25, 2014 (AFP Photo/David Buimovitch)
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Vatican
City (AFP) - Israeli President Shimon Peres and his Palestinian counterpart
Mahmud Abbas will pray for peace at the Vatican on June 8, the Holy See said
Thursday.
Pope
Francis had invited the pair to his home for a "heartfelt prayer" for
peace during his three-day trip to the region, and the meeting "will take
place on June 8, during the afternoon," a date "accepted by both
parties," the Vatican said in a note.
Despite
expectations Francis would steer clear of the thorny politics of the
intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict during his trip, the Argentine pontiff
extended a personal invitation to the two men at the end of a mass in Bethlehem
on Sunday.
"I
offer my home in the Vatican as a place for this encounter of prayer... to join
me in heartfelt prayer to God for the gift of peace," he said.
"Building
peace is difficult, but living without peace is a constant torment," he
added.
Last month,
US-led peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators collapsed in
bitter recriminations. That ended a nine-month bid to reach a solution and left
no political initiative on the horizon.
Pope
Francis (R) and Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas attend a
welcome
ceremony on May 25, 2014 in the West Bank Biblical town of Bethlehem
(AFP
Photo/Andrew Medichini)
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The meeting
had to be scheduled to take place before the 90-year-old Israeli president retires
at the end of July.
"The
meeting in the Vatican is to pray together, it's not a mediation," the
pope said during the return flight to Rome.
"It is
a prayer without discussions," said the pontiff, who has made interfaith
dialogue a cornerstone of his 14-month-old papacy.
Peres is
known for his close relationship with Abbas and has frequently pushed for a
peaceful resolution of the decades-long conflict.
Earlier
this month, he told an Israeli television channel that Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu had blocked a peace agreement he had secretly negotiated in Jordan
with Abbas in 2011.
Rami
Hamdallah, the new Palestinian prime minister, left, with
Mahmoud Abbas. (Photograph:
Thaer Ghanaim/AFP/Getty Images)
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