NEW YORK: Palestine’s Foreign Ministry has condemned the US decision to extend restrictions on entry visas for Palestinian Authority officials and members of the Palestine Liberation Organization, describing the measure as harmful to trust and to efforts toward a two-state solution.

The US State Department extended visa-denying sanctions to PA officials, including President Mahmoud Abbas.

It cited Palestinian “efforts to internationalize the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice, attempts to bypass negotiations by seeking unilateral recognition, and the continued payment of stipends to terrorists alongside the glorification of terrorism and terrorists in public statements and school textbooks.”

It added: “It is in our national interest to impose consequences and hold the PLO and PA accountable for glorifying terrorism.”

Palestine’s Foreign Ministry said the PLO remains the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and the PA remains committed to peace based on international legitimacy and a two-state solution along the June 1967 lines, with Palestinians and Israelis living alongside each other in security and peace.

It also stated its rejection of violence and hatred, and its commitment to international law as the basis for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It rejected the US characterization of Palestine’s recourse to the UN, the ICJ and the ICC as actions that undermine peace.

It said resorting to international institutions and international law is a legitimate and peaceful means of protecting Palestinian rights, in contrast to Israeli settlement expansion, annexation, displacement and settler violence.

Such “punitive measures and restrictions do not foster peace or combat violence; rather, they weaken Palestinian partners committed to a peaceful solution and embolden the occupying power, which seeks to undermine the two-state solution and entrench occupation and annexation by force,” the ministry said.

It added that international recognition of Palestine should not be viewed as a substitute for negotiations, but rather “an acknowledgment of the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and the realization of their state, and serves as support for achieving a just peace based on the two-state solution and international legitimacy.”

The ministry urged the US to reconsider the restrictions and engage in direct Palestinian-American dialogue to address areas of disagreement.