Shtayyeh and his foreign affairs minister Riad Malki met with prime minister Xavier Bettel (DP), development cooperation minister Franz Fayot and foreign minister Jean Asselborn (both LSAP) as well as members of parliament.

“A political solution is all we need for the Palestinian people to live in peace and dignity,” Shtayyeh told lawmakers. The prime minister compared Israel’s behaviour to the Apartheid regime in South Africa and said Israel is a coloniser who wants to replace one population with another.

Only the US has the power to change Israel’s position, Shtayyeh said. But small countries like Luxembourg can make a difference, too, he added, emphasising the role of the European Union in moving the discussion forward.

Luxembourg favours a two-state solution and the parliament in 2014 passed a motion calling on the government to recognise Palestine as a state, which it hasn’t yet officially done.

During their meeting, Bettel said that both sides would have to work on building trust and restarting talks. Asselborn meanwhile warned that the conflict must be resolved and cannot simply be managed in perpetuity.

Asselborn on Monday had slammed plans by Israel to expand settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory and East Jerusalem. “I call on the Israeli government to abandon the plans for the expansion of these settlements, which already constitute a flagrant violation of international law as well as a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-state solution,” he said in a statement. “The construction of housing units in Givat Hamatos would cut Jerusalem from the West Bank and constitute a barrier to the formation of a future sovereign, contiguous and viable Palestinian state.”

During a trip to the UN in New York earlier this month, the foreign minister met with permanent observer Riyad Mansour to discuss ideas to revive the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians.