His statements came during a joint press conference with the South Korean president after his first meeting in the White House.
U.S. President Joe Biden said he told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Palestinians should be respected in Jerusalem and that humanitarian aid should be delivered to Gaza as part of stop the fire agreement with Hamas.
“It is essential that Palestinians in the West Bank are safe,” Biden told Netanyahu when they spoke on May 20th.
Biden said the US “insists that Israeli citizens, whether Arab or Jewish, be treated equally.”
Biden told Netanyahu that he was referring to “inter-communal struggles” in Jerusalem, “this must come to an end.”
Biden told Netanyahu that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas should “be recognized as the leader of the Palestinian people, that is.”
The U.S. president’s remarks came during a joint White House press conference with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, in which the two pledged to work together to engage constructively with Korea. of the North. Biden’s comments are the most specific he has been about the message he had given to Netanyahu during the last conflict.
Biden praised the Israeli prime minister for keeping his word to honor the ceasefire negotiated by Egypt with Hamas. And the US president stressed that there has been “no change in my commitment, the commitment to Israel’s security. Period. No turn, nothing.”
Biden said his administration “will bring together a major package with other nations that share our vision to rebuild the houses” destroyed in Gaza without “providing Hamas with a chance to rebuild its weapons system.”
Diplomatic commitment to North Korea
Separately, Biden and the South Korean Moon said the U.S. and South Korea would try to diplomatically compromise North Korea to restrict its nuclear weapons program.
“Our two nations share the will to engage diplomatically with the DPRK (North Korea), to take pragmatic measures that reduce tensions as we move towards our ultimate goal of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula,” Biden said in a joint media conference with Moon in Washington.
Biden said he was appointing the U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, Sung Kim, an American Korean, as the U.S. special envoy to Pyongyang.
Biden administration officials have been reviewing US policy on North Korea’s nuclear program. Moon had said he would use the visit for advocating for the US to seek compromise with North Korea.
“We don’t have any illusions about how difficult this is,” Biden said. “The goal is an incredibly difficult goal.”
North Korea has rejected unilateral disarmament and has given no indication that it is willing to go beyond statements of strong support for the concept of universal denuclearization.
Biden and Moon greeted each other warmly showed up to enjoy their time together Friday.
“President Moon and I, and our teams, have had good meetings, addressing our shared agenda, in a private meeting at which my staff kept going out and saying,‘ You’ve passed the time. Time has passed. And it was totally fine, ”Biden said.
“I enjoyed our meetings so much that it made us all back down. I look forward to continuing our discussions here today, “Biden told White House reporters.
Moon and Biden teamed up to award the Medal of Honor to 94-year-old Korean War veteran Ralph Puckett, a retired U.S. Army colonel, for his bravery in a 1950 battle on a strategic hill. . He was fighting Chinese troops in North Korea.
Moon Jae-in of South Korea and President Joe Biden pose for a photo with Korean War veteran Army Colonel Ralph Puckett during a medal ceremony of honor at the White House [Jonathan Ernst/Reuters]
The US waged a war against North Korean and Chinese troops on the Korean Peninsula from 1950 to 1953 and continues to hold 28,000 soldiers there.
Moon’s visit was the first time a foreign leader attended a Medal of Honor ceremony, which Biden witnessed the strength of the US-South Korea alliance.
Moon said Puckett was an example of the strength of the alliance, which he called “an axis of peace and security on the Korean peninsula and beyond.”
