Biden says he’s handing Trump ‘a real opportunity’ for a better Middle East
President Joe Biden said in his first public remarks after Wednesday’s ceasefire agreement that the deal was “developed and negotiated” by his administration but that it will be implemented by President-elect Donald Trump’s administration.
Over the past few days, he said, “we’ve been speaking as one team.” He said he was “handing off” to the Trump administration “a real opportunity for a brighter future for the Middle East. I hope they will take it.”
Biden, referencing his decades-long career in foreign policy, said reaching a deal was “one of the toughest negotiations I’ve ever experienced.”
Biden says ceasefire agreement same as plan he proposed last year
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Bryan Pietsch
and
Cleve R. Wootson Jr.
President Joe Biden said in a statement Wednesday that the ceasefire agreement was effectively the same as
the plan he unveiled in May.
“I laid out the precise contours of this plan on May 31, 2024, after which it was endorsed unanimously by the U.N. Security Council,” he said.
The statement came as President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday sought to take credit for the parties finally clinching the deal. When asked at a news conference Wednesday whom the history books will credit with brokering the ceasefire, Biden smiled and asked: “Is that a joke?”
The agreement finally being reached is the result of the “extreme pressure” on Hamas and the “changed regional equation” after the ceasefire in Lebanon and the “weakening of Iran,” Biden said. It is also the result of “dogged and painstaking American diplomacy,” he added.
“It is long past time for the fighting to end and the work of building peace and security to begin,” Biden said.
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