French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday France could recognise a Palestinian state in June.
"We need to move towards recognition (of a Palestinian state). And so over the next few months, we will. I'm not doing it to please anyone. I'll do it because at some point it will be right," he said during a interview on France 5 television.
Macron added that in turn some countries in the Middle East could recognise the state of Israel.
"And because I also want to take part in a collective dynamic that should also enable those who defend Palestine to recognise Israel in their turn, something that many of them are not doing."
Palestine has been recognised as a sovereign state by 147 out of 193 UN members so far, with Armenia, Slovenia, Ireland, Norway, Spain, the Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Barbados joining their ranks last year.
Even though Palestine has been recognized as a sovereign state by almost 150 countries, most major Western powers have not, including the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Japan.
Among countries that do not recognize Israel are Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
"Our objective is somewhere in June, with Saudi Arabia, to chair this conference where we could finalise the movement towards reciprocal recognition by several countries," Macron said.
Palestine’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Varsen Aghabekian Shahin, told the news agency AFP that France’s recognition would be “a step in the right direction in line with safeguarding the rights of the Palestinian people and the two-state solution”.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said any “unilateral recognition” of a Palestinian state would be a “boost for Hamas”.
France has long championed a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, continuing its policy after the October 7, 2023, attack by Palestinian armed group Hamas on Israel.
On a recent trip to Egypt, Macron held talks with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II, making it clear he was strongly opposed to any displacement or annexation in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Read more at Reuters
