STOCKHOLM: Sweden yesterday officially recognised the state of Palestine, prompting Israel to recall its ambassador to Stockholm.
“We are not picking sides. We’re choosing the side of the peace process,” Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstroem told reporters as she explained the controversial decision.
Just hours after the Swedish announcement, Israel said it was recalling its ambassador to Stockholm for “consultations”.
“This indeed reflects our irritation and annoyance at this unhelpful decision, which does not contribute to a return to (peace) negotiations,” Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nachshon said.
The Swedish foreign ministry was not immediately available for comment on the Israeli move.
Wallstroem yesterday wrote in the daily Dagens Nyheter that recognition “is an important step that confirms the Palestinians’ right to self-determination.”
“We hope that this will show the way for others.”
Palestinians are seeking to achieve statehood in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank with east Jerusalem as the capital. With little progress on reaching a settlement, they have been lobbying foreign powers for international recognition.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas immediately hailed Stockholm’s decision as “brave and historic” and called for others to follow suit.
“All countries of the world that are still hesitant to recognise our right to an independent Palestinian state based on 1967 borders, with east Jerusalem as its capital, (should) follow Sweden’s lead,” Abbas’s spokesman quoted him as saying.
But Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman denounced the move, saying “relations in the Middle East are a lot more complex than the self-assembly furniture of IKEA”.
“The decision of the Swedish government to recognise a Palestinian state is a deplorable decision which only strengthens extremist elements and Palestinian rejectionism,” he said in a statement.
Israel has long insisted that the Palestinians can only receive their promised state through direct negotiations and not through other diplomatic channels.
The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly approved the recognition of Palestine as a non-member observer state in 2012.
Sweden’s announcement brings to 135 the number of countries that recognise the state of Palestine, including seven EU members in eastern Europe and the Mediterranean — Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Malta, Poland and Romania. Non-EU member Iceland is the only other western European nation to have done so.
“The EU has in the past said it would recognise when appropriate, but this is in the competence of member states,” Maja Kocijancic, spokesperson of the European external action service, said yesterday.
Wallstroem, in yesterday’s opinion piece, said that there were some “who will maintain that today’s decision comes too early.”
“I’m afraid it comes too late,” she wrote. “The government will now have to work with the other EU countries as well as the United States and other regional and international actors for the support of new negotiations.”
In the announcement, Sweden’s foreign minister also said that “the government considers that international law criteria for recognition of a Palestinian state have been fulfilled.”
AFP
