Palestine's UN membership blocked: Maldives disheartened

Maldives has expressed disappointment on the United Nations' Security Council (UNSC)'s decision to block the proposal for establishing Palestine as a full member of the United Nations (UN).

During the UNSC's quarterly open debate on the situation of the Middle East Thursday night, Maldives had called unto the 192 Member States of the UN to offer full cooperation on the efforts extended towards establishing Palestine as a full Member State of the UN.

Furthermore, speaking at the debate on behalf on Maldives, Principal Secretary to the President on Foreign Relations, Mohamed Naseer had highlighted Israel's conduct of attacking and harming thousand of Palestinian civilians in breach of international policies and the UN charter.

Noting that the UN's security council has not come through with a solution, Naseer had implored the council to take action on this matter and ban the sale of weapons to Israel.

However, the USA had vetoed the motion on offering Palestine full membership of the UN at the Security Council before it could progress further to the UN's General Council.

Addressing this, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Moosa Zameer stated that the UNSG's decision to deny Palestine membership at the UN has once again disheartened Maldives.

He had maintained that Maldives remains dedicated to standing with more than 140 UN Member States to support Palestine in their bid to establish themselves as a full Member State at the UN.

"It is imperative that the UN upholds its principles of justice and equality for all." said the Foreign Minister.

He had reiterated Maldives' call for a lasting and sustainable solution on this matter today, reaffirming Maldives's stance that this can only be achieved with the establishment of Palestine as an independent and sovereign Palestinian state accordingly with the pre-1967 border.

While 12 countries of the UN Security Council had voted to confer UN membership to Palestine, the United Kingdom and Switzerland had abstained from voting.

Once the proposal was blocked by USA, the office of the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas described the events as a weighty injustice against Palestine, emphasizing that such decisions impact and further deteriorate the region's fractured peace.

Palestine was conferred the position of UN observer in 2012. The country had lobbied their establishment as a full member of the UN for many years after their submission to claim membership in 2011 remained unaddressed without any decision or action proceeded on the proposal.