Cabinet is to consider a proposal for Barbados to officially recognize Palestine as a state.
This was disclosed by Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Kerrie Symmonds on the sidelines of a media briefing this morning.
Symmonds stated that this recognition supports Barbados’ advocacy for a two-state resolution between Israel and Palestine on a global scale.
Prime Minister Mia Mottley in a statement said Barbados has always maintained at the United Nations that there should be a two-state solution. That goes back again as far as 1967.
But ironically, despite having said to the world that we would like to see a two-state solution, Barbados itself has never recognised the state of Palestine.
So we have taken to the Cabinet the necessary paper, and now we have formally reached out to the State of Palestine, to signal our intention to formally recognize them as a state.
Prime Minister Mottley said “what we do not want to see is the escalation of this conflict to take us now unto the brink of what could quite possibly become global warfare.”
“It is the last thing that we need,” she said. “There are far too many flash-points of difficulty around the world today, and lest we forget, there is a humanitarian crisis unfolding in Palestine.”
“That issue must command our immediate attention because there is an existential threat taking place to human beings over there,” Mottley declared.
O Thursday, the United States Vetoed a draft resolution in the Security Council, recommending that the General Assembly hold a vote with the broader UN membership to allow Palestine to join as a full UN Member State. In a vote of 12 in favour to one against, with two abstentions, the United nations Security Council failed to adopt the resolution.
The draft resolution was among the shortest in the Council’s history: “The Security Council, having examined the application of the State of Palestine for admission to the United Nations (S/2011/592), recommends to the General Assembly that the State of Palestine be admitted to membership in the United Nations.”
For a draft resolution to pass, the Council must have at least nine members in favour and none of its permanent members – China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States – using their veto power.
Amid the ongoing war in Gaza, Palestine had submitted a request to the Secretary-General on 2 April, asking that a 2011 request to become a UN Member State be reconsidered.
Palestine has been a Permanent Observer at the UN since 2012, Right now, Palestine has been a “Permanent Observer State” at the UN since 2012, enjoying the status that allows it to participate in all of the Organization’s proceedings, except for voting on draft resolutions and decisions in its main organs and bodies, from the Security Council to the General Assembly and its six main committees.(WiredJA)
