WASHINGTON, Aug 30 (APP): The United States has denied and revoked visas for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and about 80 officials from the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), just weeks before the annual session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the State Department said Friday.
President Abbas had been planning to travel to New York to deliver an address to the high-level segment of 193-member Assembly, which begins on September 23.
Abbas’ office said it was astonished by the visa decision and argued that it violated the UN “headquarters agreement”, according to media reports.
Asked for a reaction, Stephane Dujarric, a UN spokesperson, said it was “important” for all states and observers, which includes the Palestinians, to be represented at the session.
“We’ll discuss these matters with the State Department in line with the UN Headquarters Agreement between the UN and the US,” he told reporters at the regular noon briefing at UN Headquarters in New York.
“We obviously hope that this will be resolved,” Dujarric added.
Under an agreement as host of the UN in New York, the US is not supposed to refuse visas for officials heading to the world body for the General Assembly. However, the State Department stated that it was complying with the agreement by allowing the Palestinian mission to the UN to attend.
“The Trump administration has been clear: it is in our national security interests to hold the PLO and PA accountable for not complying with their commitments, and for undermining the prospects for peace,” the State Department said in a statement.
The new measure further aligns President Donald Trump’s administration with Israel’s radical rightwing government, which adamantly rejects a Palestinian state and is currently engaged in a genocidal war in Gaza in which 63,000 Palestinians, most women and children, have been killed.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the State Department’s decision, accusing Palestinian leadership of obstructing peace efforts and violating U.S. law.
In a statement, Rubio said, “It is in our national security interests to hold the PLO and PA accountable for not complying with their commitments, and for undermining the prospects for peace.”
The top American diplomat added that for the PA and PLO to be seen as legitimate partners in peace, they “must consistently repudiate terrorism, and end incitement to terrorism in education, as required by U.S. law and as promised by the PLO.”
Palestinian officials denounced the move while Israeli officials welcomed it, as the Gaza war continues to devastate the besieged territory amid famine and humanitarian catastrophe for the displaced people.
The Palestinian Authority termed the U.S. decision as a breach of international law and the Headquarters Agreement, which obliges the U.S., as host country, to facilitate access to the UN regardless of political differences.
Australia, Canada, the UK and France are to recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly next month, in a move that has infuriated Israel.
Israel’s government has rejected any role for the PA in Gaza and said that recognition “rewards Hamas’s monstrous terrorism”.
Though Israel’s government is under mounting pressure at home and abroad to end its aggression in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered military forces to launch an assault to seize Gaza City. Once a major commercial and cultural hub, deadly Israeli bombings has reduced to ruins and is home to hundreds of thousands of destitute Palestinians.