Palestine's
delegation to the United Nations has cast a ballot for the first time
in a routine General Assembly vote, an act the envoy said brought his
nation a step closer to full UN membership.
The chief Palestinian UN observer, Riyad Mansour, participated in
the 193-nation assembly's election of a judge for the International
Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia on Monday in which Koffi Kumelio
Afande of Togo was elected to the court.
"This is a very, very special moment in the history of the struggle
of the Palestinian people at the United Nations," said Mansour.
It was the first time the Palestinians cast a vote since their UN
status was upgraded last November to "non-member state" from an
"entity," like the Vatican. The vote has been perceived as a de facto
recognition of Palestinian statehood.
"It's a symbolic (step)," he said. "But it is an important one
because it reflects that the international community, particularly the
General Assembly, is hungry and waiting for the state of Palestine to
become a full member of the United Nations."
Participation
Mansour said he hopes the Palestinians will become full members of
the United Nations soon, though the United States have not indicated it
has any plan to drop its opposition to that idea.
Their current status allows them to participate in some assembly votes and join some international organisations.
The Palestinians have threatened to use their new UN status to
accede to a number of international organisations and possibly sign the
Rome Statute, the treaty that established the International Criminal
Court in The Hague.
The Palestinians have not joined the ICC yet. In 2011, however, they
joined UNESCO, the UN education, science and culture agency, which led
Washington and Israel to cut off funding to the Paris-based
organisation in protest.
Earlier this month, UNESCO suspended the voting rights of the US and Israel.
The upgrade of the Palestinians' status last year came after an
attempt to secure full UN membership failed because of US resistance in
the Security Council, where Washington made clear it would use its veto
power to block the Palestinian bid.
But no country has veto power in the General Assembly, which is why
the Palestinians had no trouble securing status as a non-member state. |
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