PA prime minister urges Norway to recognize ‘State of Palestine’

Will Norway recognise 'the State of Palestine'?

By ADAM RASGON
Updated: JANUARY 9, 2018 05:29
Norwegian flags flutter at Karl Johans street in Oslo, Norway May 31, 2017. (photo credit: REUTERS)
Norwegian flags flutter at Karl Johans street in Oslo, Norway May 31, 2017.
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah called on Monday for Norway to recognize “the State of Palestine,” the official PA news agency Wafa reported.
Hamdallah made the request during a meeting in Ramallah with Norwegian Foreign Minister Ine Marie Eriksen Søreide.
“He [Hamdallah] called on the states of world, especially Norway, to recognize the Palestinian state and east Jerusalem as its capital to rescue the two-state solution and send a clear message to Israel and America to support this solution,” the Wafa report stated.
Some 136 countries have recognized “the State of Palestine,” but many of the world’s powers, including a majority of the permanent members of the UN Security Council, have not made such a decision.
Hamdallah also said the US, with its recent changes to its policy on Jerusalem, “is working on destroying the two-state solution.”
In early December, Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and initiated the relocation of the US Embassy in Tel Aviv to the holy city, breaking with decades of American policy.
Also on Monday, British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson and PA Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki met in London.
According to the British Foreign Office, Johnson told Maliki that the UK is committed to supporting a twostate solution with Jerusalem ultimately being “the shared capital of the Israeli and Palestinian states.”
The UK was one of a number of European countries that publicly opposed Trump’s decisions on Jerusalem.
In the past couple of weeks, the UK voted in favor of UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions that criticized Trump’s decisions on Jerusalem.


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