© Emil Nicolai Helms, AFP
Denmark’s foreign minister stated on Saturday that Israel is weakening the prospects for a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict through its actions in Gaza.
“Israel is right now undermining the two-state solution,” Lars Lokke Rasmussen told reporters after a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Copenhagen, News.Az reports citing foreign media.
A two-state solution would see the creation of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza that would co-exist alongside Israel.
European Union foreign ministers have urged the United States to reconsider its decision not to allow Palestinian officials to take part in the UN General Assembly in New York, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Saturday.
The US will not allow Palestinian officials and diplomats, including the leader of the Palestinian Authority (PA), President Mahmoud Abbas, to attend next month’s United Nations General Assembly in New York, the State Department said Friday.
A State Department official said Abbas and about 80 other Palestinians would be affected by the decision to deny and revoke visas from members of the umbrella Palestine Liberation Organization and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.
A source in the US State Department said that, in addition to Abbas, the US has denied visas to 80 other officials from the PA.
In a statement, the department reiterated longstanding US and Israeli allegations that the PA and PLO had failed to repudiate terrorism while pushing for “unilateral recognition” of a Palestinian state.
Palestinian officials reject such allegations and claim that decades of US-mediated talks have failed to end Israeli occupation and secure an independent Palestinian state.