Portugal is preparing to recognize a Palestinian state as early as next September, Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel told Portuguese news site SIC on Thursday.
The country will join 14 others that reached the decision on Tuesday morning, with each deciding on different requirements for the recognition.
Rangel claimed that the conversation about recognition had been going for some time, and the countries had been preparing for the announcement “when appropriate.”
According to the minister, these countries had been “in contact for a long time ” to prepare for this recognition, “when appropriate."
"This was agreed upon by all of us. President Macron doesn't decide alone, and we follow suit," Rangel claimed. "It's a matter we're deciding together. "
Both the United States and Israel boycotted a UN meeting to discuss the implementation of a two-state solution.
Israel's allies have been critical of the country's recognizing a Palestinian state now, asserting that such a move would be a reward for Hamas and would alleviate pressure on the terror group to release the remaining 50 hostages in exchange for a ceasefire in the Palestinian enclave.
Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana denounced plans to recognize a Palestinian state during his speech at the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) World Conference of Speakers of Parliament in Geneva on Wednesday.
“If you want a Palestinian state, build it in London or Paris,” Ohana told the participants.
Gaza's future leadership
He asserted that while critics may lament that Portugal did not recognize a Palestinian state sooner, the sitting government was the first to halt weapons exportations to Israel and voted last year to admit a Palestinian representative to the UN.
"We always said we would conduct the reconnaissance when it would have a useful effect. The useful effect is here," Rangel claimed, while adding that the Palestinian Authority is ready to seize power from Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian Authority was booted from the Gaza Strip by Hamas nearly 20 years ago after a failed coalition, kickstarting Hamas’s dictatorship over the region.
Concerns have also been raised that corruption within the PA, pay-for-slay policies, and President Mahmoud Abbas’s history of anti-Israel statements would make the PA an unreliable leader in Gaza. Israel has repeatedly rejected the PA taking control of the Gaza Strip.
Defense Minister Israel Katz renewed his insistence in early July that the PA would have no future role in Gaza.