Spain to recognize Palestinian statehood by July, its PM says

Spain will recognize Palestinian statehood by July, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told journalists during a Middle East tour, The Times of Israel reports, citing several reports published in Spanish media.

State news agency EFE and newspapers El Pais and La Vanguardia cited Sanchez as making the informal remarks to the travelling press corps late on April 1 in the Jordanian capital, Amman, on the first day of visits to Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

According to the reports, Sanchez said he expected events to unfold in the conflict ahead of the European Parliament elections in early June and highlighted ongoing debates at the United Nations.

He expected Spain to extend recognition to the Palestinians by July, he said, adding that he believed there would soon be a “critical mass” within the European Union to push several member states to adopt the same position, according to EFE.

Sanchez’s statement comes as Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian Authority’s envoy to the UN, told Reuters Monday that the PA planned to apply for full UN membership at the body’s Security Council, where the United States, Israel’s staunch ally, has veto power. A 2011 PA application for full membership was still pending because the 15-member council never made a formal decision, Mansour told Reuters.

Malta is president of the Security Council for April. Malta’s UN ambassador, Vanessa Frazier, said she had yet to receive a formal request for action from the PA.

Malta, along with Slovenia and Ireland, was said by Sanchez at a March 22 European Council meeting to have agreed to “take the first steps” toward recognizing statehood declared by Palestinians in the Israeli-controlled West Bank and Gaza Strip. At the time, Sanchez said he expected the recognition to happen during the current four-year legislature, which began in 2023.

Israel subsequently accused the four countries of offering a “prize for terrorism” that would reduce the chances of a negotiated resolution to the Gaza conflict.

Arab states and the EU had agreed at a meeting in Spain in November that a two-state solution, establishing an independent Palestinian state, was the solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Since 1988, 139 out of 193 UN member states have recognized Palestinian statehood.