US announces it will deny visa to Palestinian Authority president and other officials ahead of UN General Assembly – WSVN 7News | Miami News, Weather, Sports
(CNN) — The United States is denying a visa to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for next month’s UN General Assembly – a significant and controversial move ahead of the global summit where multiple countries are expected to recognize a Palestinian state.
The State Department announced Friday it is “denying and revoking visas” from members of the Palestinian Authority (PA) & Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
A State Department official confirmed that “Abbas is affected by this action along with approximately 80 other PA officials.”
According to Friday’s announcement, the Palestinian Authority’s Mission to the UN “will receive waivers per the UN Headquarters Agreement.”
However, refusing Abbas a visa would appear to violate that agreement as the United Nations recognizes Palestine as a non-member observer state.
The policy will also severely limit the presence of Palestinian officials at the annual global summit as the war in Gaza continues and a number of key allies prepare to recognize a Palestinian state.
In a statement Friday, the Palestinian presidency expressed “deep regret and astonishment at the US State Department’s decision not to grant visas to the Palestinian delegation participating in the UN General Assembly meetings next September.” The statement called on the US to “reconsider and reverse its decision.”
Move ‘unjust’
European countries have condemned the move. Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez described the visa decision as “unjust,” in a statement on X Saturday.
“Palestine has the right to make its voice heard at the United Nations and in all international forums,” he wrote.
France, one of the countries due to recognize a Palestinian state, also weighed in.
“A UN General Assembly meeting… should not be subject to any restrictions on access,” Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said at a meeting in Denmark.
Asked about the announcement, Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said Friday, “we will see exactly what it means and how it applies to any of our delegation, and we will respond accordingly.”
In the statement announcing the move, the State Department accused the PA and the PLO of taking steps that “materially contributed to Hamas’s refusal to release its hostages, and to the breakdown of the Gaza ceasefire talks.”
“Before we take them seriously as partners in peace, the PA and PLO must completely reject terrorism and stop counterproductively pursuing the unilateral recognition of a hypothetical state,” State Department deputy spokesperson Tommy Pigott said on X.
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which has 57 member states including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Egypt, Indonesia and Pakistan, criticized the US decision, calling it “discriminatory.”
In a statement released Friday it called on the US to “reconsider this discriminatory decision, which contradicts international law and the Headquarters Agreement it signed, and to fulfill its obligations under this agreement and respect the role of the United Nations as a unifying umbrella for all states and their official representatives.”
Several experts said that the denial of visas to Palestinian officials for the key gathering in New York does not help advance diplomacy for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Israeli officials, including Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and UN Ambassador Danny Danon, praised the move.
In July, the State Department announced sanctions that would deny visas to the US to unnamed PA and PLO officials.
The move also appears to be a further step to punish those involved in international tribunals’ probes of alleged crimes committed by Israel.
“The PA must also end its attempts to bypass negotiations through international lawfare campaigns, including appeals to the ICC and ICJ, and efforts to secure the unilateral recognition of a conjectural Palestinian state,” Friday’s statement said.
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