Ramallah: A senior Palestine official has said that the unilateral Israeli actions in the Palestinian territories undermine the chances for peace and the two-state solution.
Hussein Al-Sheikh, Secretary-General of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), on Sunday made the remarks during a meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah with visiting US senior diplomats ahead of an expected visit of US President Joe Biden, according to an official statement carried by Palestinian state news agency WAFA.
Attending the meetings were Al-Sheikh and other senior Palestine officials and the US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Barbara Leaf and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Israeli and Palestinian Affairs, Hady Amr, Xinhua news agency reported.
The Palestine Liberation Organisation Secretary-General told the US officials that Palestinians “need security and stability, ending the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian territories and establishing an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 border”.
He explained to the officials that it is necessary to abide by the peace agreements signed between the Palestine Liberation Organisation and Israel and implement the UN resolutions “which have never been implemented”.
The meeting discussed the escalated tension in the West Bank amid the daily Israeli army raids on Palestinian towns and villages and the visits of Israeli radicals to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in East Jerusalem, according to the statement.
The two sides also discussed the expected visit of Biden to Israel and Palestine, the removal of the PLO from its terrorism list, and the reopening of the US consulate in East Jerusalem.
Among the talking points were also the economic situation and the necessity of resuming US aid to the Palestinians, especially in light of the Palestinian financial crisis as Israel withholds its tax revenues.
Palestine urges US to remove PLO from terror lists
The Palestinian Authority (PA) had urged the US to remove the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) from the lists of terror classified by the US Congress, a senior Palestinian official had said.
The PA addressed an official letter to the US administration, calling on it to remove the PLO from the lists of terror, Hussein al-Sheikh, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, had said in a press statement.
“We expressed our shock and our absolute rejection of the persistence of this unjust and unfair classification of the Palestinian people who live under the occupation while the Israeli terrorist organisation Kach was removed from those lists,” Al-Sheikh had added.
The Palestinian request comes days after US State Department announced that it removed five extremist groups believed to be no longer active from its list of foreign terrorist organisations, including the Israeli “Kach” organisation, Xinhua news agency reported.
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