France upgrades diplomatic ties with Palestinians to spur creation of Palestinian state

France upgrades diplomatic ties with Palestinians

PARIS — France is upgrading its diplomatic relations with the Palestinian Territories to try to spur international efforts toward creating a Palestinian state, the French foreign minister said Monday.

Bernard Kouchner said the Palestinian diplomatic representation in France — which was called a “delegation” and headed by a “general delegate” — will henceforth be considered a “mission” headed by an “ambassador, chief of mission.”

The French government said the decision concerns the Palestinian Authority under President Mahmoud Abbas — and notably does not mention the Gaza Strip, ruled by the militant Hamas since 2007.

Similar upgradings are under discussion in Spain and Greece, Deputy Palestinian Foreign Minister Ibrahim Khreisheh said in a telephone interview. He said the United States made a similar move last week, upgrading the Palestinian presence from a PLO media office in Washington to a Mission of Palestine in Washington. The change enables the Palestinians to raise their flag there for the first time, Khreisheh said.

The move appeared to be largely symbolic, with a counselor at the Palestinian mission welcoming the change while acknowledging it will not alter the mission’s functions.

Kouchner said the change in status was aimed at supporting efforts to create a Palestinian state and “guarantee its credibility.”

“Only the extremists profit from the status quo. The moment has come to shake things up,” Kouchner’s statement said. “If we wait, we will make the chances for peace retreat.”

Ghassan Khatib, the spokesman of Abbas’ government, hailed the French announcement as “an indication of the growing understanding of the international community of the Palestinians right to independence and statehood.”

“We believe this is a result of the efforts made of the Palestinian Authority to confirm to the world that it deserves independence and that it can turn into a state,” he said in Ramallah.

The spokeswoman for the Israeli Embassy in France, Nina Ben-Ami, said only that “we were not consulted on the matter, and we have no comment.”

“We hope that all European countries would upgrade our diplomatic presence,” said Khreisheh, the deputy Palestinian foreign minister, adding that France is the first western European country to make such an upgrade.

The Palestinian Authority has 58 full-fledged embassies in Arab, Islamic and African countries, as well as former Socialist countries in Eastern Europe, Khreisheh said.

He said 54 countries have set up so-called representative offices in the Palestinian territories, including 22 EU members, seven South American countries, as well as Japan, China, Sri Lanka and India. They are all known as “representative offices” because, under the interim peace deals with the Israelis from the 1990s, the Palestinians are not permitted to host full-fledged embassies.

The French Foreign Ministry said France has no other diplomatic “mission” that shares the Palestinians’ new status. The French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec has a “delegation” in France, alongside the Canadian Embassy, he said.

Taipei has a “representative office” in France instead of an embassy. Taiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949, and China has repeatedly warned that any Taiwanese moves to formalize its de facto independence could be met with war.

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Associated Press writers Mohammed Daraghmeh and Dalia Nammari in Ramallah contributed to this report.