Foreign Minister Luis Murillo announced on Wednesday that the management of Colombia’s far-left President Gustavo Petro may open an official in Ramallah, which has recently cut all diplomatic relations with Israel.
According to Murillo, Ramallah’s opening of an embassy is intended to promote the recognition of” Palestine” as a state.
According to Murillo,” President Petro has given the order that we open the Brazilian ambassador in Ramallah, the picture of Colombia in Ramallah, that is the next phase we are going to take,” he said to reporters in Bogotá.
El Canciller @LuisGMurillo reiteró la instrucción del Presidente @petrogustavo de abrir la embajada de Colombia en Ramallah, “ese como del próximo bend que como a dar”, con destacó bien probablemente este vez más países de a reconocer a Palestina mas Estado. photograph. twitter.com/EmOvHgtBVU
— Cancillería Colombia (@CancilleriaCol ) May 22, 2024
In August 2018, former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos acknowledged Palestine as a state just before the end of his presidential term and the beginning of the conservative former President Iván Duque’s ( 2018 – 2022 ) administration.
At the VIII summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States ( CELAC ), a regional bloc, hosted by Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in March, Petro “led” efforts for the United Nations to recognize Palestine as a state” with full rights.”
Murillo said:
President Petro even convened a meeting of Spanish American president in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, which included president of Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Mexico’s foreign minister, and several other countries.
” We believe and are convinced that more and more countries are going to identify Palestine”, he continued.
Murillo claimed that the choice to start an embassy in Ramallah “is little against Israel, the people of Israel, or the Jews” but, instead, a determination stemmed from the United Nations ‘ 1990s Oslo Accords that called for the development of a two- condition solution.
In the midst of Hamas ‘ extraordinary October 7 terrorist attack, which left more than 1,200 dead and hundreds of hostages, including about a dozen Latin American citizens, Gustavo Petro, a former member of the Socialist M19 rebel and Colombia’s second leftist president possibly, has attempted to end the decades-long friendly relationship between Colombia and Israel.
Petro has repeatedly accused Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of carrying out a “genocide” against Hamas in self-defense. Petro also claimed that the Israeli government had made a number of antisemitic remarks on social media that made the country look like Auschwitz.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a weekly cabinet meeting at the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem on March 19, 2023 ( Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File ).
Petro wrote,” If I had lived in Germany in 1933, I would have fought on the side of the Jews, and if I had lived in Palestine in 1948, I would have fought on the Palestinian side.” ” Now the neo- Nazis want the destruction of the Palestinian people, freedom and culture. The Israeli and Palestinian people’s demands are now the democrats and progressives.
Following repeated threats to do so after October 2023, Petro ultimately cut all ties to Israel at the start of May. The Colombian president also criticized the United Nations General Assembly for passing a non-binding resolution in May asking the UNSC to reconsider reversing its decision to grant” Palestine” full membership status.
Petro, a proud M19 guerrilla, committed several well-known terrorist attacks in Colombia during its roughly 20 years of activity, including the 1985 terrorist attack at the Palace of Justice in Bogotá, one of the worst terrorist attacks ever to occur in Colombian history.
Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro addresses a crowd at the International Workers Day in Bogota, Colombia on May 1, 2024 ( Juancho Torres/Anadolu via Getty Images ).
On that day, roughly 35 M19 members attacked the seat of Colombia’s judiciary, holding hundreds of civilians hostage. 11 Colombian Supreme Court justices were among the nearly 100 civilians killed during the siege.
Petro has made it known that some M19 members have previously trained and fought alongside other organizations.
Echoing his president’s “genocide” accusations against Israel, Foreign Minister Murillo concluded his remarks this week by condemning Israel’s self- defense actions, which, according to Murillo, are “generating” a” situation of genocide”.
