US extends visa ban on Palestinian officials before UN General Assembly
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is among those barred for the second year in a row.
The United States Department of State has announced it will extend visa sanctions on officials of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), preventing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas from travelling to New York ahead of his address to the United Nations General Assembly next week for the second year in a row.
“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, the United States will extend sanctions that deny visas to PLO members and PA officials,” the State Department said in a statement.
The State Department accused the PA of violating US law by pursuing international recognition of Palestinian statehood outside direct negotiations, taking its dispute with Israel to international courts and providing payments to people the US and Israel label as convicted attackers and their families.
It added that the PA mission to the UN would keep a waiver under the UN Headquarters Agreement, which allows its regular staff to continue working even as individual officials are barred from entering the US.