Abbas strips Qaddoumi of his status as Palestinian foreign minister

[ 08/10/2007 - 09:23 AM ]

RAMALLAH, (PIC)--

Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, sent a message to all countries informing them that the PA foreign minister is the one representing Palestinian foreign diplomacy abroad, well informed Palestinian sources revealed on Sunday.

The message meant that Farouq Al-Qaddoumi, who is the head of the PLO political department, was no longer authorized to represent Palestinian foreign diplomacy.

The new message revoked an earlier one in which Abbas endorsed Qaddoumi as the representative of Palestine in foreign political platforms during the reign of the Hamas-led PA government, which Abbas dissolved and appointed a new government not yet sanctioned by parliament.

The sources explained that Abbas's message came after Qaddoumi headed a Palestinian delegation to the conference of the non-aligned countries' foreign ministers hosted by Iran last month.

Qaddoumi justified his participation in the conference without coordinating with Abbas by the fact that the NAM chairmanship had addressed an invitation to him in his capacity as the foreign minister of Palestine.

Abbas recently endorsed Riyadh Al-Maliki, the information minister in his illegal government, as acting foreign minister.

Fair Use Notice

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.