President Khalifa reiterates UAE support for Palestine

The President made his remarks in a letter marking the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people

The West Bank. Getty Images

In a letter marking this year’s ‘International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people’, the President of the UAE, has reaffirmed Arab support for United Nations' efforts to establish an independent Palestinian state.

The full letter, addressed to Ambassador Cheikh Niang, the Permanent Representative of Senegal to the United Nations, who chairs the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, is published below.

"On behalf of the government and people of the UAE, I am pleased to extend our sincere thanks and gratitude to you, as well as to the esteemed and distinguished members of the committee for their continued and determined efforts to support the Palestinian people in international events.

On this occasion, we reiterate our continued support for the activities and programmes of the committee, which reflect the UN’s firm commitment to the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people to their inalienable rights, including their right to self-determination and the establishment of their independent state, like the rest of the world.

This year, as we celebrate the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, we are witnessing an unprecedented critical period for the Palestinian cause, due to the continued aggression by Israel against the Palestinian people and its attempts to reinforce its occupation of the Palestinian territories, through creating new facts on the ground and threatening to impose its domination on a large part of the Palestinian territories.

The UAE, under the framework of its joint responsibility with other Arab countries to support the Palestinian cause and improve security and stability in the region, reiterates its rejection of all escalating Israeli violations that have undermined the international efforts to advance the Middle East Peace Process. It also calls on the UN to shoulder its responsibility to end the suffering of the Palestinian people.

On this day, we affirm our solidarity with the government and people of Palestine and their right to self-determination, as well as our support for all regional and international efforts to ease their suffering. We also affirm that the Palestinian Cause will remain the central issue of Arabs and one that concerns them.

Therefore, we cannot foresee the manifestation of a just, comprehensive and lasting peace in the region without achieving a two-state solution, in accordance with the Arab Peace Initiative and relevant international resolutions, which aim to declare an internationally-recognised and independent Palestinian state based on its 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

In the end, we reaffirm the UAE’s continuing support for the Palestinians, to achieve a just, comprehensive and permanent solution to their fair cause. We hope that the UN will continue its efforts to harness financial and development support to alleviate the deteriorating humanitarian and economic conditions in Palestine, including through supporting the efforts of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, UNRWA, to empower Palestinians and enable them to build their national institutions and achieve the 2030 Agenda."