Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Ishtaye called for a formal recognition of Palestinian statehood by the US government, specifically an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. The US does not officially recognise the State of Palestine as of yet.
A delegation of US Congress members headed by Ben Cardin met the Palestinian head of state on Monday after which a statement was issued in which Ishtaye demanded that Congressmen to work on amending the American laws which link both the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and the Palestine Liberation Organization to terrorism. A demand was also raised to allow the PNA to contest elections in all Palestinian territories.
The statement also discussed the future of US-Palestine relations amidst accusations that the US is propagating human rights violations committed by Israel against Palestinians by backing the Israeli regime. The PM also urged reopening the US consulate in East Jerusalem which was one of the few contact points between Palestine and the US. The re-opening of the consulate as proposed by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, was contested by Israel who said it would undermine Israeli sovereignty.
"How can we continue to talk about the two-state solution when there are 720,000 settlers on the lands of the Palestinian state, and the settlement program is continuing?... 62 per cent of the Palestinian lands [are] under the direct control of Israel, and it deals with it as a geographical reservoir for settlement expansion," he added.
In a statement on Sunday, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said it views the reopening of the consulate as part of the international community's commitments to ending Israel's decades-long occupation of territories the Palestinians seek for their future state. Israel considers the West Bank and East Jerusalem as its own territory since the 1967 war where it occupied these places, and Palestine wishes to unite these territories under East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state.