Corbyn: Labour government would quickly recognize Palestine

Britain's opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn visit a solar power plant during his visit to Al Zaatari refugee camp, in the Jordanian city of Mafraq, near the border with Syria, June 22, 2018. (Reuters)

• British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn said Friday that a government under his leadership would recognize a Palestinian state "very early on" and push hard for a political solution to the Syrian civil war.
• Corbyn spoke during his first international trip outside Europe since he was elected Labour Party leader in 2015.

ZAATARI REFUGEE CAMP, Jordan: British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn said Friday that a government under his leadership would recognize a Palestinian state "very early on" and push hard for a political solution to the Syrian civil war.
Corbyn spoke during his first international trip outside Europe since he was elected Labour Party leader in 2015.
On Friday, he toured Zaatari, Jordan's largest camp for Syrian refugees. On Saturday, he is to visit a decades-old camp for Palestinians uprooted during Arab-Israeli wars.
In Zaatari, he walked through the camp market, lined by hundreds of stalls, where he sampled falafel and chatted with a sweets vendor who told him his dream is to return to Syria as soon as possible. Corbyn also inspected a sprawling solar power installation that provides about 12 hours a day of electricity to the camp's 80,000 residents.
Labour under Corbyn gained parliament seats, but narrowly lost to Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservative Party in 2017 snap elections.
Opinion polling suggests the two parties are neck and neck. Britain is not scheduled to have another election until 2022, but there could be an early vote if May's fragile minority government suffers a major defeat in Parliament.
With his visit to Jordan, Corbyn appeared to be burnishing his foreign policy credentials.
Taking questions from reporters in the Zaatari market, he said that a Labour government would "work very, very hard to regenerate the peace process" in Syria. He said two parallel sets of talks about a solution for Syria would need to "come together," but did not offer specifics.
Without a solution in Syria, "the conflict will continue, more people will die in Syria and many many more will go to refugee camps, either here in Jordan or come to Europe or elsewhere," he told The Associated Press.