The United States (U.S.) on Friday confirmed its opposition to the recognition of a Palestinian state, laying the groundwork for diplomatic talks with the United Kingdom (UK), which recently made a decision to recognize Palestinian statehood.
Speaking during his visit to the UK, U.S. Vice President JD Vance said that this issue would be part of the talks with Foreign Minister David Lammy.
“Obviously, the UK will make its own decision. We have no plans to recognize a Palestinian state,” said Vance.
“I don’t know what it would really mean to recognize a Palestinian state, given the lack of a functional government there. And what the president has made very clear is that our two goals are very simple right now, regarding the situation in Israel and Gaza,” he said.
“First, we want Hamas to never again be able to attack innocent Israeli civilians, and we believe that this must be achieved by eradicating Hamas,” he added.
Secondly, he said, “the president was deeply moved by those terrible images of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. So, we want to make sure that we address that problem.”
“I think all of us can work on how to solve that problem. Obviously, it’s not easy to resolve, otherwise it would already be resolved, but I think we share that focus and that goal,” he added.
“We may have some disagreements about exactly how to achieve that goal, and we will talk about that today.”
Asked whether the U.S. was previously warned about the decision of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to order the occupation of Gaza City, Vance said he would not discuss “private conversations.”
He said he expects Trump himself to speak to the media on that issue.
