Riyadh Al-Maliki, the Palestinian minister of foreign affairs, told the Voice of Palestine Radio that Pinera announced late Thursday that the leaders of country’s political parties “recognize the state of Palestine.”
Al-Maliki said the announcement came two days after the Chilean senate passed a resolution calling on Pinera to recognize Palestine.
The minister added that the recognition came after a request by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during his meeting with Pinera in Brazil early last week.
Pinera’s announcement is preceded by official recognition of Palestine by other Latin American countries — Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. The United States and Israel slammed the move as counterproductive and damaging.
Al-Maliki said that Pinera is due to visit the West Bank in three months. He also announced the opening of a Palestinian embassy in Ecuador, which already declared its recognition of a Palestinian state.
Uruguay also announced that it planned to join Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia in recognizing a Palestinian state, and Al-Maliki said that the country would formally do it in March 2011. For the Palestinians, such moves are initial steps to declare Palestine as an independent state. The Palestinians seek to get international recognition of their state in response to the breakdown of peace talks with Israel after the Israeli government resumed building settlements in the West Bank in September.
The Palestinian foreign minister said that European countries are expected to upgrade the level of diplomatic Palestinian representation offices, but not to the level of embassies.
“The level of representation will be developed to a diplomatic mission and the head of the mission will be called ambassador, similar to recent steps by Spain and France,” Al-Maliki added.
According to the minister, Britain promised the PA to study steps and procedures to boost the status of the Palestinian representation office in London.
In December, the EU said it will recognize the Palestinian state “when appropriate.”
The United States said that the Palestinian state should be a result of a negotiated solution with Israel.
