US EXTENDS VISA BAN ON PALESTINIAN OFFICIALS BEFORE UN ASSEMBLY

The US State Department has said it will extend visa sanctions on officials of the Palestinian Authority and members of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, a move that prevents Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas from travelling to New York for the United Nations General Assembly next week. The department said in a statement that the sanctions were imposed "as a consequence of their failure to reform, contrary to their commitments to the United States, and their ongoing activities that undermine the prospects for peace." Its statement did not name Abbas, but a source familiar with the matter confirmed to AFP that he was covered by the measure. It marks the second consecutive year that Abbas has faced a US travel ban ahead of a planned address to the General Assembly, having addressed it by video last year under the same restriction imposed by the Trump administration.

The State Department accused the Palestinian Authority and PLO of pursuing international recognition of Palestinian statehood outside direct negotiations with Israel, and of taking their dispute with Israel to the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice. It also said the organisations continued to pay stipends to people the US and Israel describe as convicted attackers, and accused them of glorifying acts of terrorism in public statements and school textbooks. The Palestinian Authority's mission to the UN will keep a waiver under the UN Headquarters Agreement, allowing its regular staff to continue working in New York even as individual officials remain barred from entering the US.

The ban comes after the United Kingdom, France, Canada and other Western governments recognised a Palestinian state this month, and follows a conference co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia at which a reported 142 UN member states have now endorsed a two-state solution. Abbas had been expected to use his address to press for wider international recognition of Palestinian statehood and to highlight the situation in Gaza and the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. No Israeli officials face equivalent US travel restrictions. The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged war crimes in Gaza.