PN urges government to recognise Palestine today, not next month
'Robert Abela must go beyond words and act' - Beppe Fenech Adami
The Nationalist Party on Monday urged the government to recognise the state of Palestine “today, not in a month’s time”.
In a statement, the PN shadow foreign minister Beppe Fenech Adami and international secretary Beppe Galea questioned why Prime Minister Robert Abela wanted to delay the recognition of the State of Palestine by almost a month.
While welcoming Sunday’s announcement that the government had “at last” agreed to recognise the State of Palestine, Fenech Adami and Galea said it was “difficult to understand why the same Abela is now saying he will recognise the State of Palestine but only in a month’s time.”
“Robert Abela himself has acknowledged that what is happening in Gaza is a daily humanitarian tragedy. That is why he must now go beyond words and act, and recognise the State of Palestine today, not tomorrow,” the PN said.
While Malta implicitly recognises Palestinian statehood and hosts a Palestinian ambassador, it has never formally recognised it.
Abela indicated that the development will take place on June 20, the scheduled date of a United Nations conference.
Fenech Adami and Galea pointed out the PN had long called for the government to take this step, “yet Robert Abela continued to dig in his heels, claiming it was not the right time.”
Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes on Gaza continued on Sunday and Monday with scores of people reported to have been killed including in an attack on a school that was being used as a shelter.