Author : Presstv | Readings : 30 | Date : 2012-08-07
Ministers of Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) have denounced Israel for denying entry to five ministers to the West Bank city of Ramallah for a meeting.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr said on Sunday that the NAM Ministerial Committee on Palestine condemned the “blatant action by Israel.”
“It is a flagrant violation of the principles of international law and of Israel's obligations as the occupying power," Amr told reporters.
"This Israeli action highlights once again to NAM and to the whole international community the plight of the Palestinian people in their struggle to achieve full independence," he said in the Jordanian capital Amman.
Tel Aviv’s action cancelled a key meeting of NAM ministers at which they were supposed to sign a declaration supporting a fresh Palestinian bid for UN membership.
Israel denied entry to the ministers of Algeria, Bangladesh, Cuba, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
The Egyptian foreign minister said the move “only strengthens NAM's resolve to assist the Palestinian people in their legitimate quest for dignity and their inalienable right to statehood
Foreign ministers from the 13 countries belonging to NAM's Palestine Committee were to have signed the "Ramallah Declaration" in support of a bid to upgrade Palestine’s UN status from observer to non-member state.
On Saturday, caretaker Palestinian Authority (PA) Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki called the statement "a political declaration that endorses and supports the Palestinian people's right to have a state, condemns settlements, and supports the Palestinian bid to obtain non-member status at the UN."
The request will be put to the UN General Assembly on September 27, exactly one year after PA chief Mahmoud Abbas tried to obtain full member status.
The request was never put to a vote in the UN Security Council, where the United States had pledged to veto it.