Spanish PM's comments on Palestine recognition
Speaking to the congress on Wednesday, Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced that his government would recognise the state of Palestine on 28 May following the lead set by Norway and Ireland.
Sanchez said that his government rejected “the massacre in Gaza and the rest of the Palestinian territories”, calling for an end to the fighting and a two-state solution.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu is still turning a blind eye and bombing hospitals, schools, homes,” said Sanchez. “He is still using hunger, cold and terror to punish more than a million innocent boys and girls – and things have gone so far that prosecutors at the International Criminal Court have this week sought his arrest for war crimes.”
Netanyahu had “no peace plan for Palestine”, the Spanish prime minister said.
In other comments, he said:
- Those countries that defend human rights and rule-based international law are obliged to act – in Ukraine and in Palestine – without double standards
- We’re obliged to do what we can: sending humanitarian aid, as we are; helping refugees and displaced people, as we are
- We also have to use all the political resources at our disposal to say, loud and clear, that we’re not going to allow the possibility of the two-state solution to be destroyed by force because it’s the only just and sustainable solution to this terrible conflict
- That is why I wish to inform you that after discussing the decision with the two parties that make up this progressive coalition government – and in keeping with the feelings of the majority of the Spanish people – Spain’s cabinet will approve the recognition of the Palestinian state on Tuesday 28 May