
Palestinian Authority (PA) cabinet leader Mohammad Shtayyeh on Friday met in Ramallah with Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio.
During the meeting, Shtayyeh called on Italy to “break the status quo” and recognize the “State of Palestine”, reported the PA’s official Wafa news agency.
Shtayyeh called on Italy to “break the status quo by recognizing the Palestinian state," in light of what he said was a "systematic destruction of the two-state solution as a result of Israeli settlement activities and the decisions of the US administration that violate international law."
"This is the right time for the European Union and its countries to work to fill the void left by the US administration in the political process by its bias towards Israel, by recognizing Palestine and launching an international conference to solve the Palestinian issue on the basis of international law and UN resolutions," Shtayyeh said.
Palestinian Arab officials have been pressuring countries to officially recognize “Palestine”, in a move meant to bypass direct peace talks with Israel.
Those calls have grown since US President Donald Trump unveiled his peace plan for Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas was quick to reject the US plan and said it would be relegated to the "dustbin of history."
While several European countries have recognized “Palestine” in recent years, those moves were symbolic ones that have little, if any, actual diplomatic effect.
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)