RONEN ZVULUN/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington next month, the prime minister’s office said Sunday, making the Israeli one of the first foreign leaders with whom Trump will have met after taking office.
During a phone call on Sunday, one of Trump’s first with a foreign leader since assuming the presidency Friday, Trump and Netanyahu discussed “the nuclear deal with Iran, the peace process with the Palestinians and other issues,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
Trump also invited the Israeli prime minister to visit Washington in February, with a final date to be determined in the coming days, the statement said.
The call was the third Trump has held with a foreign leader since Friday, according to the White House. He previously spoke with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Saturday.
British Prime Minister Theresa May is scheduled to meet with Trump in the Oval Office on Friday — which would be Trump’s first meeting with a foreign leader — and Pena Nieto is set to meet with Trump at the end of the month.
Netanyahu and former President Barack Obama long had a frosty relationship, but Netanyahu has signaled he looked forward to working with Obama’s successor. His office characterized their conversation as “warm.”
“There are many issues between us including the Israeli-Palestinian issue, the situation in Syria and the Iranian threat,” Netanyahu tweeted Sunday, before the call. “Stopping the Iranian threat, and the threat reflected in the bad nuclear agreement with Iran, continues to be a supreme goal of Israel.”
Trump has said he would move the United States’ embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which Israel considers its capital, a move Palestinians and Israel’s other Arab neighbors have warned could prove destructive to the peace process.
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