Secretary of State John Kerry is seeking to “upgrade and clarify” the understandings reached by Israel and Jordan last year on the Temple Mount status quo in an effort to quell the current wave of violence, Israeli officials close to the matter told Haaretz on Monday night.
One of the ideas being examined is putting the understandings between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and King Abdullah II in writing, according to those officials.
Kerry told a news conference in Madrid on Monday that in discussions he’d had with Netanyahu and Abdullah, the two expressed a desire to enter a process that would uphold the status quo on the Mount and “make sure everybody understands what that means.”
“We need to have clarity,” said Kerry.
Kerry will meet Netanyahu in Berlin on Thursday and on Saturday, he will meet with King Abdullah and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Amman to try to ratify understandings on the Temple Mount.
