Trump’s Mideast team, in Egypt, discusses Israeli-Palestinian peace

Reporting from Cairo —  President Trump’s Mideast team arrived in Egypt on Thursday as part of its regional tour to discuss a blueprint for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner and Mideast envoy Jason Greenblatt met with President Abdel Fattah Sisi in Cairo, according to a White House statement. The visit was part of efforts to overcome the obstacles to a deal the team is in charge of drafting.

The meeting touched upon “the need to facilitate humanitarian relief to Gaza,” the statement said. The blockaded and densely populated Gaza Strip, ruled by the Islamist militant group Hamas, has sunk into a deep humanitarian crisis, especially after the increase in violence amid protests at the border with Israel in recent weeks.

Kushner has been leading efforts to broker a peace deal between the two sides. U.S. officials have said the long-awaited peace plan is near completion and should be released this summer after several postponements.

The Trump team met Tuesday with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Wednesday with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who acknowledged the talks only after the fact.

Later Thursday, the U.S. team traveled to Qatar and met with its emir, Sheik Tamim bin Hamad al Thani, according to a White House statement. They discussed increasing cooperation between the two countries, ways to provide humanitarian relief to Gaza and possibilities for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

In Egypt, Thursday’s meeting with the U.S. delegation also dealt with increasing Egyptian-American cooperation, the White House said without elaborating.

Egypt’s presidency released a statement after the meeting saying it mainly discussed the Palestinian-Israeli peace efforts and cooperation. It said the meeting was attended by Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and the acting head of general intelligence, Abbas Kamel.

Washington gives Egypt some $1.3 billion in annual military assistance and hundreds of millions more in civilian aid that is linked to Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel, and underpins a U.S.-Egyptian security relationship that is now mostly aimed at fighting terrorism.