RAMALLAH, Palestine, Feb 18 (NNN-WAFA) – Palestinians are calling on the international community to help resolve their conflict with Israel, while rejecting the U.S. peace plan.
A senior Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) official, called for the establishment of an international assembly, based on rights and justice, so as to end the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.
According to a press statement, Hanan Ashrawi, member of the PLO Executive Committee, said, “An international assembly will be able to present alternatives and confront the dangers that threaten peace.”
“This assembly can also end the illegal Israeli occupation,” she said, while meeting with a British parliamentary delegation in Ramallah.
Political ties between the Palestinian Authority and the United States have been severed, after U.S. President, Donald Trump, declared Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in 2017.
On Jan 28, Trump announced the U.S. Mideast peace plan, in the presence of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, which was strongly rejected by Palestinians.
The PLO published on its official website that the U.S. plan involves 300 violations of international law and international resolutions.
Salleh Ra’fat, a PLO Executive Committee member, said, “The state of Palestine will never surrender and will keep working with the United Nations Security Council, to issue a resolution that rejects the deal.”
He called on EU countries to recognise the state of Palestine and also called on the international community to hold an international conference, “to implement the international resolutions and oblige Israel to fully withdraw from the Palestinian territories it occupied since 1967.”
Sabri Seidam, member of Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Party’s Central Committee, called for a strict international intervention, to rescue the principle of the two-state solution, as the U.S. plan “flares the conflict but doesn’t end it.”
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry, said, the international community has to move against the U.S. peace plan.
“There is not much time left to salvage the two-state solution,” said the statement, adding, “neutral or reluctant positions towards this dangerous U.S.-Israeli plan are not feasible in preventing a U.S. coup against international law.”
The Foreign Ministry’s statement also said, “large parts of the U.S. deal has already been implemented, mainly in issues related to Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugees.”
Foreign ministers of 27 EU countries yesterday held a monthly meeting in Brussels, to discuss major developments in the Middle East, particularly, the U.S. peace plan.
Shadi Othman, EU Communication officer in Jerusalem, told journalists in Ramallah that the peace process in the Middle East “topped the issues that were discussed during the Brussels meeting.”
“The European side seeks a stable, unified and clear position that is based on international legitimacy criteria and reiterates that the only way for solving the conflict is through direct negotiations based on international peace references,” he said.
Othman said, “The EU will keep backing the principle of the two-state solution on the 1967 borders.”– NNN-WAFA
