VATICAN CITY -- Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will join Pope Francis for an afternoon of prayer at the Vatican on June 8, the Vatican said Thursday.
In a brief statement, the Vatican said both sides accepted the date for the prayer meeting, which Francis suggested during his recent trip to the Middle East. Both men immediately accepted that offer.
Francis has stressed that the Vatican is not seeking to jumpstart peace negotiations between the two sides, but merely bring them together to pray. He said he had arranged for a rabbi and a Muslim cleric to lead the prayers, along with him.
"It will be a prayer meeting. It's not to do mediation or find solutions," he told reporters on the flight home from Jerusalem on Monday. "We'll meet just to pray, and then everyone will go home. But I think praying is important, praying together."
He called both Abbas and Peres "men of peace."
The prospects of any breakthrough are slim. Peres, a 90-year-old Nobel peace laureate, holds a largely ceremonial office and is set to step down this summer. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed anger with politicians who have reached out to Abbas at a time when the Palestinian leader is reconciling with the Islamic militant group Hamas. Israel considers Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, a terrorist group.
