The United Nations General Assembly approved this Thursday a resolution supported by 152 countries that requests the United States to withdraw its decision to prevent Palestinian participation in its eighty-first session, considering that the measure violates the Headquarters Agreement.
Thus, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will be able to intervene before the organization through a television broadcast at the scheduled date and time.
The voting result represents broad support for Palestine’s presence in the work of the General Assembly, despite the restrictions imposed by the U.S., the host country of the United Nations headquarters in New York.
Only three countries voted against the initiative: the United States itself, Israel, and Paraguay; while Colombia, Panama, Honduras, and Peru chose to abstain.
The approved text demands that Washington immediately retract its decision to prevent the participation of the Palestinian delegation in the sessions corresponding to the new period of the General Assembly.
The States that supported the initiative consider that the U.S. restrictions constitute a violation of the Headquarters Agreement, signed between the United Nations and the U.S.
The agreement establishes the obligations of the host country to guarantee access to the organization’s headquarters. Among them is the obligation to facilitate the entry and residence of diplomatic delegations, member states, and observers so that they can participate in the General Assembly meetings without obstacles.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs celebrated the approval of the resolution and expressed its gratitude to the countries that promoted the text, those it referred to as “brothers and friends,” as well as to the States that voted in favor.
Palestinian authorities emphasized that the General Assembly’s decision will prevent any U.S. restriction on Palestine’s participation in the highest-level meetings, as well as in the rest of the session’s work, allowing its representation to convey its position before the United Nations despite the impossibility of having a physical presence.
As an alternative, Mahmoud Abbas’s speech will be broadcast via television transmission, according to the schedule established for his intervention, as confirmed by the Ministry itself in a social media post.
“The adoption of this decision represents a break from attempts to prevent Palestine’s participation in the work of the Security Council at a high level and the General Assembly (…) The voice of the Palestinian people will reach the United Nations”, the note says.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry added in its statement that the vote that gave “green light” to Abbas’s intervention before the General Assembly only confirms the continuity of the Palestinian voice within the UN, frustrating efforts aimed at marginalizing Palestine and “its cause” from the organization’s work.
The authorities also reiterated their intention to continue defending the interests of their population and working for their protection. According to the same statement, this work includes promoting a solution to the Palestinian issue through political, legal, and diplomatic means.
The Foreign Ministry also indicated that it will maintain its stance against the occupation, the policies it calls colonial, the crimes attributed to Israeli settlers, and other practices that, it argued, undermine the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.
The goal, it concluded in its message, is to achieve an independent State of Palestine, with Jerusalem as its capital.
Read more Why the CEO of OpenAI asks to trust AI companies even though the world “is right to be afraid”
