As President Pranab Mukherjee began his ‘historic’ tour to Jordan, Palestine and Israel on Saturday, the Palestinian Government expressed that it was looking forward to all forms of support from India to enable it to build an independent nation.
Mukherjee, who reached Jordan’s capital Amman in the first leg of his three-nation visit on Saturday, will reach Palestine on October 12 where he will hold talks with his counterpart.
“The President of India will pay the first ever State visit to Palestine from October 12-13 at the invitation of President of Palestine Mahmoud Abbas. The people and the leadership of Palestine welcome this historic visit of the President of India and his companying high level delegation to the holy land as a guest and a close friend of Palestine,” Palestine embassy said in a statement.
The embassy further added: “We are looking forward to the sincere Indian efforts and all forms of support to enable us build our Palestinian independent State and achievement of the just comprehensive peace, security, and stability in the region on the principle of the two State solution.”
President Mukherjee’s visit comes at a time when tension between Palestine and Israel is again on a high due to alleged killing of six Palestinian protestors by Israeli forces in Gaza. While Israel claims the protesters were getting violent, Palestine has claimed that there have been 16 deaths and 1000 bullet injures since the beginning of October.
India has been maintaining a fine balance while dealing with these two countries and encourages both sides to find a peaceful solution. “India remains steadfast in its principled support to the Palestinian cause and India has always supported a negotiated solution resulting in a sovereign, independent, viable and united State of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its Capital, living within secure and recognised borders side by side at peace with Israel as endorsed in the Quartet Roadmap and relevant UN Security Council Resolutions,” said Anil Wadhwa Secretary (East) in Ministry of External Affairs.
“We supported Palestine’s bid for full and equal membership of the United Nations in 2011. We also co-sponsored the UNGA Resolution in November 2012 that upgraded the status of Palestine to a non-member observer State. We also supported the recent resolution in UNGA a few weeks back regarding raising the flags of non-member observer States at the UN, and we witnessed the historic installation of the national flag of Palestine at the United Nations on September 13”, he added.