US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told reporters on Thursday the Trump administration was interested in pursuing new approaches to solving the Israeli-Arab conflict.
Speaking after a Security Council meeting, Haley was repeatedly asked to address comments by President Trump during his joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, during which Trump said he was open to either a one-state or two-state solution, whichever the parties themselves favored.
"I'm looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like," Trump said.
In response, Ambassador Haley emphasized that the president’s comments in no way signaled that the US had rejected the two-state solution; rather that the administration remained open to possible alternatives.
“Anybody that wants to say the United States does not support the two-state solution, that would be an error," Haley said. "We absolutely support a two-state solution, but we are thinking out-of-the-box as well."
The US, Haley added, hoped to restart negotiations "in a fresh way, to say 'okay we're going back to the drawing board: what can we agree on?'".
Haley also accused the United Nations of holding an anti-Israel bias, remarking that criticism of Israel had turned the world body into "more of a divider than a uniter" on the peace process.
