RAMALLAH, Nov 14 (NNN-WAFA) – Palestinian officials slammed U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo’s reported decision, to visit Israeli settlement in the West Bank, calling the planned visit “a challenge to international consensus.”
“The visit will be a challenge to the positions of all previous U.S. administrations, that emphasised the illegality of settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories,” said Palestinian Minister of Civil Affairs, Hussein al-Sheikh, in a press statement.
Israeli media earlier reported that Pompeo would make an exceptional visit to a winery, at Psagot settlement in the West Bank, and the contested Golan Heights, during a visit to Israel next week.
“The visit is dangerous and violates international law and the United Nations resolutions,” said Palestinian Prime Minister, Mohammed Ishtaye during a meeting in Ramallah with Ekaterina Zaharieva, Bulgaria’s deputy prime minister for judicial reform and minister of foreign affairs.
Such a visit to a settlement, built on lands belonging to Palestinian owners, “represents the legitimisation of settlements and a blow to international legitimacy,” Ishtaye added.
Israel occupied the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem in 1967, and has since built dozens of settlements on the occupied territories, all regarded by the Palestinians and international entities, as illegal.
In 2019, Pompeo announced that Washington no longer considered Israeli settlements, built on Palestinian territories, as inconsistent with international law, in remarks immediately rejected by the Palestinians.
The Palestinians want to establish an independent state on the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, with Jerusalem as its capital, by way of peace talks with the Jewish state.
The last round of peace negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis, broke down in 2014, because of their deep divisions on issues related to Israeli settlements and the Palestinian statehood.
The Palestinian Authority severed its diplomatic ties with the administration of U.S. President, Donald Trump, after he declared Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, in 2017.
