PORT MORESBY: A prompt admission of Palestine into the United Nations is a move to rectify prolonged historical injustice, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Saturday.
Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks at a press conference with his Papua New Guinea counterpart Justin Tkatchenko in Port Moresby.
The United Nations should work to play its due role in responding to global challenges, and the UN Security Council should do its duty to maintain international peace and security, Wang said, noting that the international community has profound dissatisfaction and disappointment at the United States over its sole veto recently to deny Palestine full UN membership.
An early full UN membership for Palestine is a move to rectify prolonged historical injustice, Wang stressed, adding that this is an international obligation due to be fulfilled by each UN member state.
However, the United States once again openly stands opposite to international morality, and to the international community, leaving one more very dishonorable record in history, the Chinese foreign minister noted.
A full UN membership for Palestine should not come as a result of Israel-Palestine negotiations, but as an equal precondition granted to Palestine for negotiations, serving as a key step towards realizing the two-state solution, Wang pointed out.
It is not that conditions are not ripe for Palestine to fully become a UN member state, but that justice remains long overdue, Wang said, noting that the United States should act to show its claimed support for the two-state solution.
The United States vetoed a widely back UN resolution on Thursday that would have recognized a Palestinian state. China called Washington’s move “disappointing.”
“Today is a sad day,” said Fu Cong, China’s permanent representative to the United Nations, after the UN vote on Palestine’s pursuit of full UN membership. Twelve members out of the 15-member Security Council voted in favor of the resolution, while the UK and Switzerland abstained and the U.S. voted against it.
“Because of the veto by the United States, the application by Palestine for full membership at the UN has been rejected, and the decades-long dream of the Palestinian people ruthlessly dashed,” Fu said.
The Chinese envoy slammed the notion that Palestine does not have the capacity to govern itself. “Over the past 13 years, the situation in Palestine has changed in many ways, the most fundamental of which has been the expansion of settlements in the West Bank,” Fu gave China’s support, denouncing Washington’s “gangster logic.”
He also highlighted the critical need for a resolute commitment to revitalizing the two-state solution for the Middle Eastern country.
“The two-state solution must be revitalized with strong determination. The fundamental way out for the Middle East question lies in the implementation of the two-state solution, so that both Palestinians and Israelis can realize common security and both the Arab and Jewish peoples can achieve common development,” said Fu in an earlier Security Council’s open debate on the Palestinian-Israeli issue also held on Thursday.
This is the second Palestinian attempt at full membership: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas first delivered the application in 2011 but failed due to not enough support from UN Security Council members.
Abbas, this time, criticized the U.S. veto, saying in a statement that it was “unfair, immoral, and unjustified, and defies the will of the international community, which strongly supports the State of Palestine obtaining full membership in the United Nations.”
Palestine to reconsider U.S. ties after veto of UN membership bid
The Palestinian Authority will reconsider bilateral relations with the U.S. after Washington vetoed a Palestinian request for full United Nations membership, President Mahmoud Abbas said in an interview with the official WAFA news agency.
