Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has denied that the United States was abandoning its insistence on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Haley's statement on February 16 came a day after President Donald Trump said the United States would not insist on a two-state solution.
Haley said there was no change in the long-standing U.S. policy.
"Anybody that wants to say the United States does not support the two-state solution, that would be an error," Haley told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York.
"We absolutely support a two-state solution, but we are thinking out of the box as well," she said after a UN Security Council meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Trump, at a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on February 15, shocked many observers when he seemed to signal a change in U.S. thinking.
"I'm looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like," Trump said.
That was seen as a break from the previous U.S. policy on recognition of a Palestinian state as part of a final Middle East peace deal.
Pressed by reporters on February 16, Haley repeated three times that the U.S. backs a two-state solution.
She also accused the UN of anti-Israel bias and said criticism of Israel had turned the world body into "more of a divider than a uniter" on the Middle East peace process.