Palestinian Authority urges US to reinstate Abbas’s visa before UNGA

Mahmoud Abbas’s spokesperson calls connected countries to exert unit connected Washington earlier adjacent month’s UN yearly meetings.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s bureau has urged the United States to reverse a decision to revoke the Palestinian leader’s visa, conscionable weeks earlier helium was acceptable to be the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) successful New York.

The Palestinian presidency expressed “astonishment” astatine Washington’s determination connected Friday to rescind the visas for Abbas and 80 different Palestinian officials earlier adjacent month’s high-level meetings astatine UN headquarters.

Abbas has addressed the General Assembly for galore years and mostly leads the Palestinian delegation.

“We telephone upon the American medication to reverse its decision,” Abbas’s spokesperson spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh told The Associated Press connected Saturday, informing that the determination “will lone summation hostility and escalation”.

“We person been successful interaction since yesterday with Arab and overseas countries, particularly those straight acrophobic with this issue. This effort volition proceed astir the clock,” Abu Rudeineh said.

The spokesperson besides urged different countries to enactment unit connected US President Donald Trump’s medication to reverse its decision, including astir notably those that person organised a high-level league astir reviving the two-state solution.

Set for September 22, the league is being co-hosted by France and Saudi Arabia.

‘Ideologically driven’

The Trump administration’s visa curbs travel amid increasing condemnation of Israel’s devastating war connected Palestinians successful the Gaza Strip and a question of Israeli settler and subject unit successful the occupied West Bank.

The deadly attacks person prompted a increasing fig of countries to denote plans to recognise an autarkic Palestinian authorities astatine the UN successful September.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio justified the revocations connected Friday by accusing the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) of “not complying with their commitments” and “undermining the prospects for peace”.

Rubio besides accused the PA of taking portion successful “lawfare campaigns”, including appeals to the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court to clasp Israeli accountable for abuses successful Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

But Matt Duss, enforcement vice president astatine the Center for International Policy, a US-based deliberation tank, accused the Trump medication is “clearly violating diplomatic protocol” successful its determination to revoke the visas.

As a big state, the US is meant to assistance visas to UN member-state representatives and officials to sojourn the planetary body’s office successful New York City.

“What’s going connected present is intelligibly ideologically driven,” Duss told Al Jazeera.

“There are radical wrong the Trump medication who are moving intimately with the right-wing Israeli authorities and their extremity is to simply region the Palestinian liberation question from the planetary agenda,” helium said.

“They bash not recognise the Palestinian peoples’ close to state, and they’re some trying to forestall that connected the crushed successful Palestine and present they’re trying to region them from the planetary docket successful New York.”

European criticism

Meanwhile, the European Union’s overseas argumentation main said the bloc is calling connected Washington to reconsider its visa denials.

“In the airy of the existing agreements betwixt the UN and its big state, we each impulse for this determination to beryllium reconsidered,” Kaja Kallas said connected Saturday pursuing a gathering of EU overseas ministers successful Copenhagen.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot besides said the General Assembly “cannot endure immoderate restrictions connected access”.

“The United Nations office is simply a spot of neutrality, a sanctuary dedicated to peace, wherever conflicts are resolved,” Barrot said.

Meanwhile, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said helium spoke with Abbas connected Saturday to explicit his “firm support” aft the “unjust” visa revocations.

“Palestine has the close to marque its dependable heard astatine the United Nations and successful each planetary forums,” Sanchez wrote successful a station connected societal media.

Source:

Al Jazeera and quality agencies