Germany said Friday it had “no plans to recognise a Palestinian state in the short term,” after President Emmanuel Macron said France intended to do so in September.<\/p>\n
“The government continues to regard the recognition of a Palestinian state as one of the final steps on the path to achieving a two-state solution,” spokesman Stefan Kornelius said in a statement, adding that “Israel’s security is of paramount importance to the German government”.<\/p>\n
Macron provoked an angry reaction from Israel when he announced on Thursday that his country would formally recognise a Palestinian state during a UN meeting in September.<\/p>\n
The move came amid growing international alarm about the plight of the more than two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where Israel’s war on Hamas has triggered a dire humanitarian crisis and warnings of mass starvation.<\/p>\n
Germany, long at pains to atone for the Holocaust, has been a strong ally of Israel and a supporter of its war against Hamas sparked by the October 7, 2023 attack, though it has voiced criticism over the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza.<\/p>\n
Germany was not among the 28 Western countries that made a joint statement this week saying the war in Gaza “must end now” as civilian suffering had “reached new depths”.<\/p>\n
Berlin on Friday laid out four priorities where it said “long-overdue progress” was needed to end the war in Gaza.<\/p>\n
“A ceasefire is needed in Gaza now,” the statement said, also calling for the release of all hostages.<\/p>\n
“Israel must immediately and drastically improve the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza,” it added.<\/p>\n
It stressed that “a viable political perspective for Gaza is necessary so that a temporary ceasefire can become a lasting peace” and that “there must be no further steps toward annexation of the West Bank”.<\/p>\n
“The German government is in constant contact with the Israeli government and international partners on this issue. It is prepared to increase pressure if progress is not made.”<\/p>\n
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz was due to hold a phone call on Friday with Macron and Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer to discuss the crisis in Gaza.<\/p>\n
fec\/fz\/yad<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Germany said Friday it had “no plans to recognise a Palestinian state in the short term,” after President Emmanuel Macron said France intended to do so in September. “The government continues to regard the recognition of a Palestinian state as one of the final steps on the path to achieving a two-state solution,” spokesman Stefan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"jnews_post_split":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[95,101,248,93,146],"class_list":["post-3812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional","tag-conflict","tag-diplomacy","tag-germany","tag-israel","tag-palestinians"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}