In a meeting last night with the US Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, Barbara Leaf, and her deputy Hady Amr, at his Ramallah office, Hussein al-Sheikh, Secretary-General of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), urged the United States to reopen its consulate in Jerusalem and remove the PLO from its list of terrorist organizations.

Al-Sheikh said the meeting comes as part of many with the American delegation and in preparation for US President Joe Biden’s visit to the region expected to take place in the middle of next month.

During the meeting, held in the presence of the Director of General Intelligence, Majid Faraj, President Mahmoud Abbas’s Diplomatic Advisor, Majdi al-Khalidi, and the Director of the PLO’s Secretary-General’s office, Aya Muheisen, “we discussed the latest political and field developments in the Palestinian territories as a result of the Israeli escalation and the settlers’ terror and their daily attacks, especially in Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the attacks on citizens and journalists, as happened with the martyr Shireen Abu Akleh,” he said in a statement.

“I stressed the necessity of reopening the USA consulate in East Jerusalem and removing the PLO from the lists of terrorism in accordance with the unfair congressional laws against the Palestinian people, and talked about the economic aspects and the need to resume assistance to the Palestinian Authority (PA), as well as unilateral measures that would undermine the two-state solution and peace opportunities, especially in light of the global financial crisis, especially the financial crisis in the PA due to the occupation’s withholding of our money from taxes owed to us,” he said.

“I added that we need security and stability and an end to the occupation and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, stressing the need to adhere to the agreements signed between the PLO and Israel, and to implement international legitimacy resolutions that haven’t been implemented,” al-Sheikh concluded his statement.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)