Last May, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that Washington would reopen the consulate-general. He made the announcement after meeting with PA President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.
However, Blinken did not give a precise date for the reopening, but said that it would be “an important way for our country to engage with and provide support to the Palestinian people.”
Last week, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid warned that US plans to reopen the consulate-general would jeopardize Israel’s government.
“We have an interesting, yet delicate structure of our government, and we think this might destabilize this government – and I don’t think the American administration wants this to happen,” Lapid said.
During the meeting with the senators, Shtayyeh called on the US administration “to expedite the implementation of its promises, especially the reopening of the US Consulate in east Jerusalem, in addition to removing the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority from the lists of terrorism in the US,” the PA’s official news agency Wafa reported. READ MORE
