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BRUSSELS, June 21 (Xinhua) -- European Council President Donald Tusk here on Tuesday met with visiting President of Israel Reuven Rivlin, saying that a lasting peace in the region remains a top priority for the EU.
"We will continue to work with both sides and coordinate with partners in the Middle East Quartet to support the two-state solution. The EU is ready to back up a peace deal with an unprecedented package of cooperation and support to both Israel and the future state of Palestine," Tusk said following the meeting.
"The EU will continue to provide assistance to Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, to enable them to meet their basic humanitarian and development needs," said Tusk.
"I welcome the temporary freeze in demolitions of Palestinian property announced by Israel for the month of Ramadan," he said.
"This is my first visit to the institutions of the EU as president of the state of Israel, and I see it as a sign of the great importance of relations between Israel and the EU," said Rivlin.
Tusk said that the two sides spoke about ways to strengthen further the relationship, including the new European Neighborhood Policy. They agreed that the EU and Israel will identify jointly partnership priorities to give even greater focus to the cooperation.
They also discussed how best to protect Israeli and European citizens against terrorism. Tusk welcomed Israel's offer to deepen cooperation on counter-terrorism, including by re-launching EU-Israel dialogue in this area later this year.
The EU is the biggest trading partner for Israel with total trade amounting to approximately 30 billion euros (33.75 billion U.S. dollars) in 2014. Enditem
