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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
US announces it will deny visa to Palestinian Authority president and
other officials ahead of UN General Assembly
By Jennifer Hansler, CNN
Updated:
7:17 AM EDT, Sat August 30, 2025
Source: CNN
The United States is denying a visa to Palestinian Authority President
Mahmoud Abbas for next month’s UN General Assembly – a significant
and controversial move ahead of the global summit where multiple
countries are .
The State Department announced Friday it is “denying and revoking
visas” from members of the Palestinian Authority (PA) & Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO).
A State Department official confirmed that “Abbas is affected by this
action along with approximately 80 other PA officials.”
According to Friday’s announcement, the Palestinian Authority’s
Mission to the UN “will receive waivers per the UN Headquarters
Agreement.”
However, refusing Abbas a visa would appear to violate that agreement
as the United Nations recognizes Palestine as a non-member observer
state.
The policy will also severely limit the presence of Palestinian
officials at the annual global summit as the war in Gaza continues and
a number of key allies prepare to recognize a Palestinian state.
In a statement Friday, the Palestinian presidency expressed “deep
regret and astonishment at the US State Department’s decision not to
grant visas to the Palestinian delegation participating in the UN
General Assembly meetings next September.” The statement called on
the US to “reconsider and reverse its decision.”
Move ‘unjust’
European countries have condemned the move. Spain’s Prime Minister
Pedro Sanchez described the visa decision as “unjust,” in a
statement on X Saturday.
“Palestine has the right to make its voice heard at the United
Nations and in all international forums,” he wrote.
France, one of the countries due to recognize a Palestinian state, also
weighed in.
“A UN General Assembly meeting… should not be subject to any
restrictions on access,” Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said at a
meeting in Denmark.
Asked about the announcement, Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad
Mansour said Friday, “we will see exactly what it means and how it
applies to any of our delegation, and we will respond accordingly.”
In the statement announcing the move, the State Department accused the
PA and the PLO of taking steps that “materially contributed to
Hamas’s refusal to release its hostages, and to the breakdown of the
Gaza ceasefire talks.”
“Before we take them seriously as partners in peace, the PA and PLO
must completely reject terrorism and stop counterproductively pursuing
the unilateral recognition of a hypothetical state,” State Department
deputy spokesperson Tommy Pigott said on X.
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which has 57 member
states including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Egypt, Indonesia and
Pakistan, criticized the US decision, calling it “discriminatory.”
In a released Friday it called on the US to “reconsider this
discriminatory decision, which contradicts international law and the
Headquarters Agreement it signed, and to fulfill its obligations under
this agreement and respect the role of the United Nations as a unifying
umbrella for all states and their official representatives.”
Several experts said that the denial of visas to Palestinian officials
for the key gathering in New York does not help advance diplomacy for a
ceasefire in Gaza.
Israeli officials, including Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and UN
Ambassador Danny Danon, praised the move.
In July, the State Department announced sanctions that would deny visas
to the US to unnamed PA and PLO officials.
The move also appears to be a further step to punish those involved in
international tribunals’ probes of alleged crimes committed by
Israel.
“The PA must also end its attempts to bypass negotiations through
international lawfare campaigns, including appeals to the ICC and ICJ,
and efforts to secure the unilateral recognition of a conjectural
Palestinian state,” Friday’s statement said.
This headline and reported have been updated with additional
developments.
CNN’s Ibrahim Dahman, Tamar Michaelis, Sophie Tanno and Kareem El
Damanhoury contributed to this report.
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