Barack Obama on Monday offered his clearest pledge since taking office to pursue a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, as he took his message of remaking US relations with the Muslim world to Turkey.

President Obama urged Israel and the Palestinians to “live up to the commitments they have made”, in what is likely to be seen as a rebuke to Israel’s new rightwing government, whose foreign minister last week distanced himself from a 2007 US-backed process to create a Palestinian state.