(Washington) The United States announced on Friday to refuse visa granting to members of the Palestinian Authority before the UN General Assembly scheduled for September, where France will plead for the recognition of a Palestinian state.
“Secretary of state Marco Rubio revokes and refuses the granting of visas for members of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority before the next United Nations General Assembly,” the State Department said in a statement.
This extraordinary measure still brings the Trump administration to the Israeli government closer, which categorically rejects the idea of a Palestinian state and seeks to put on the same footing the Palestinian authority, based in the West Bank, and Hamas in Gaza.
“The Trump administration has been clear: it is in the interest of our national security to hold the organization of liberation of Palestine and the Palestinian authority responsible for not respecting their commitments and compromising the perspectives of peace,” said the statement.
The State Department accused the Palestinians of using justice for illegitimate purposes by turning to the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice to resolve their litigation with Israel.
The Palestinian Authority must end “attempts to bypass negotiations through international judicial wars” and “efforts to obtain unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state,” said the text.
The United States is not supposed to refuse visas to civil servants going to the UN, whose headquarters are in New York, under an agreement that the State Department ensures respecting by authorizing the Palestinian mission to the United Nations.
The State Department did not specify whether the measure applied to all Palestinian officials.
His spokesperson said the United States “remained open to a resumption of contacts if the Palestinian authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization took concrete measures to return to a constructive discussion.”
The president of the Palestinian authority, Mahmoud Abbas, must participate in the 80e UN General Assembly, which will be held from September 9 to 23, according to Riyad Mansour, Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations.
Photo AMR Nabil, Associated Press Archives
The president of the Palestinian authority, Mahmoud Abbas
“We will see what this implies exactly and how it applies to our delegations, then we will respond accordingly,” said Mr. Mansour to the press.
At the end of July, Emmanuel Macron announced that France was going to recognize the state of Palestine in the UN General Assembly. In the process, more than a dozen Western countries have called on other countries of the world to do the same.
In 1988, Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, had a speech during a special general meeting gathered in Geneva rather than New York, after a refusal of the United States to let him return to their territory.
Donald Trump plans to attend the General Assembly of September where he will say one of the first speeches. Its administration has clearly limited relations with the United Nations and other international organizations.
