Iran calls America's $50billion Middle East peace plan 'shameful' after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned he is certain it will fail
- Iranian foreign ministry spokesman has criticized the $50billion US peace plan
- Abbas Mousavi has slammed the blueprint as 'shameful' and 'doomed to failure'
- Palestine's Mahmud Abbas also said he thought Bahrain conference would fail
- Adviser Jared Kushner is leading the so-called 'Peace to Prosperity' workshop
Iran has branded the US $50billion Middle East peace plan as 'shameful' and 'doomed to failure'.
An Iranian foreign ministry spokesman today slammed the plan that is set to be presented at an international conference in Bahrain this week.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas also said yesterday that he was confident the peace conference would fail.
The US government unveiled on Saturday the economic part of its peace plan that it will present in Bahrain on Tuesday and Wednesday, with the aim of raising more than $50 billion for the Palestinians and creating one million jobs within a decade.
But Abbas's government had already rejected the proposal, saying the dispute with Israel is political and accused the US of seeking to buy Palestinian support.
And Iran went a step further and accused Britain of siding with America over domestic politics and the Brexit crisis.
Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Mousavi said the $50billion US Middle East peace plan is 'shameful' and 'doomed to failure'
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas speaking during a meeting with journalists in the occupied West Bank town of Ramallah yesterday
'This conference and the sale of Palestine will lead nowhere,' Iran's foreign ministry spokesman, Abbas Mousavi said.
Mousavi also criticized Andrew Murrison, Britain's minister for the Middle East, for his remarks on Sunday after a visit to Tehran.
Murrison said Iran almost certainly bears responsibility for recent attacks on tankers in the Gulf of Oman.
'What (Murrison) said after the meetings was not constructive. It seems Britain is siding with America due to its domestic problems and Brexit crisis,' Mousavi added.
Set to be presented by Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the blueprint envisions a global investment fund to lift the Palestinian and neighboring Arab economies and is part of broader efforts to revive the Israeli-Palestininan peace process.
But President Abbas, who is boycotting the US-led conference, focused on the Palestinian economy in his criticisms of the plan.
The Palestinian Authority is not attending the Bahrain meeting, saying only a political solution will solve the problem.
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner has led the the so-called Peace to Prosperity workshop in Bahrain
Donald Trump shaking hands with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during a joint news conference at the presidential headquarters in Bethlehem in May 2017
It said Kushner's 'abstract promises' were an attempt to bribe Palestinians into accepting Israeli occupation.
Abbas said: 'We are certain that the workshop in Manama will not be successful.
'We will not be slaves or servants for Greenblatt, Kushner and Friedman,' Abbas said at his presidential office in Ramallah.
'We need the economic [support], the money and the assistance, but before everything there is a political solution.
Share this article
'For America to turn the whole cause from a political issue into an economic one, we cannot accept this.'
Abbas, 84, cut off ties with the US administration in December 2017 after Trump broke with decades of international consensus and recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
Palestinians see the eastern part of the disputed city as the capital of their future state.
Over the past weeks the US and Iran's main regional rival Saudi Arabia have also blamed Iran for attacks on two oil tankers last week in the Gulf of Oman and on four tankers off the United Arab Emirates on May 12
They have since refused to accept American-led negotiations with Israel, accusing the Trump administration of systematic bias.
Kushner is expected to lead the so-called Peace to Prosperity workshop in Bahrain, the first part of Trump administration's long-delayed peace proposal.
All major Palestinian business-people are boycotting the event, while no Israeli government officials are expected to attend.
The US plan released on Saturday offered the potential of unprecedented international investment and dramatically improved infrastructure, education and internal governance in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the event of a peace deal with Israel.
The political part of the plan is expected to be released later, likely after Israeli elections in September.
Despite the severing of ties between the Palestinian Authority and the United States, Abbas told reporters the PA had maintained security ties with the US Central Intelligence Agency, saying it was necessary to help fight terrorism.
The US Navy today announced another American warship arrived in the Mideast amid the heightened tensions.
Monday's Navy statement says the USS Boxer amphibious assault ship, along with the amphibious transport dock USS John P. Murtha and the amphibious dock landing ship USS Harpers Ferry arrived in the 5th Fleet's area of responsibility.
