‘More Countries will Recognize Palestine’ – Colombia to Open Embassy in Ramallah
The announcement comes after Gustavo Petro’s government withdrew its diplomats from Israel and broke relations with Israel on May 2.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro has ordered the opening of its embassy in the Palestinian city of Ramallah.
“President Petro has given the instruction that we install a Colombian embassy in Ramallah. That is the next step we are going to take,” Foreign Affairs Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo told reporters on Wednesday.
The announcement comes after Petro’s government withdrew its diplomats from Israel and broke relations with the country on May 2.
The intention to open an embassy in Palestine was announced by Petro on Oct. 20 last year, when he met with the Ambassadors of Israel, Gali Dagan, and Palestine, Raouf Almalki, the Anadolu news agency reported.
Full UN Member State
According to Murillo, the president also led a meeting of leaders in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, where it was agreed to implement strategies so that Palestine is recognized as a full member state of the United Nations.
”We are sure that more and more countries will recognize Palestine, and this is nothing against Israel or the Jews,” said the Colombian foreign minister.
“The United Nations agreed in the context of the Oslo agreements that a two-state solution will be created, and if two states are needed, Palestine needs to be recognized as a full state,” he added.
The announcement was made on the same day that Spain, Ireland and Norway announced that they would jointly recognize the State of Palestine on May 28.
Colombia recognized Palestine as a state on August 3, 2018, during the government of Juan Manuel Santos, according to Anadolu.
Diplomatic Ties Severed
Earlier this month, Petro announced that Colombia would sever diplomatic relations with Israel due to its ongoing genocidal war on Gaza.
“If Palestine dies, humanity dies, and we are not going to let it die,” the president declared at a Workers Day rally attended by thousands in Bogota.
In April, Colombia requested the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to allow the country to intervene in South Africa’s lawsuit accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.
Colombia said its intervention “is aimed at assisting the Court in construing the provisions of the Convention that are in question in this case.”
The government said it submitted the request “in the genuine belief that the States parties to the Genocide Convention should do everything in their power to ensure the prevention, suppression and punishment of genocide.”
The country’s president has repeatedly spoken out against Israel’s atrocities in the Gaza Strip calling it “Nazi-like”.
Over 35,000 Killed
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 35,800 Palestinians have been killed, and 80,011 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
(PC, Anadolu)
