August 13, 2014
Dr. Ashrawi Meets with the President of the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador, Sigfrido Reyes Morales
Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, met with Sigfrido Reyes Morales, the President of the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador, and his delegation, at the PLO headquarters in Ramallah, and welcomed them to Palestine.
Dr. Ashrawi said, “Individual countries are masters of their own sovereign decisions and are capable of creating real change; the fact that El Salvador has employed steps of conscience and justice, including recalling its Israeli ambassador from Tel Aviv, is extremely important, and we thank the El Salvadorian Government and its people for taking concrete measures to act in unity with the Palestinian people.”
In addition, on behalf of El Salvador, Mr. Morales conveyed “a message of solidarity” to the Palestinians and praised Palestine as “a nation of dignity.”
Both parties agreed that the situation in both Gaza and in the West Bank (including Jerusalem) is deteriorating quickly and that Israel is engaging in war crimes and in acts of state terror to attack a defenseless nation. They also discussed the importance of Palestinian reconciliation and how Israel has used it latest brutal assault on Palestine to sabotage the national unity government.
In the meeting, Dr. Ashrawi discussed important measures and steps to alleviate the suffering in Gaza; these include the immediate delivery of emergency relief to the people of Gaza, and a detailed plan for short-term and long-term reconstruction in Gaza.
Dr. Ashrawi stressed, “In spite of the status quo, we will act to relink Gaza to the West Bank (including Jerusalem), and we will move forward to end both the siege of Gaza and the military occupation of Palestine. If the international community is unable to bring an end to Israeli impunity, we will resort to all venues of international judicial accountability, including acceding to the Rome Statute and approaching the ICC. We have already issued a request to the Swiss Government to convene the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention as a matter of urgency, and appealed to the UN Human Rights Council which has already formed a commission of inquiry.”
“Any attempts at launching political negotiations must be firmly based on international law and within the UN as part of a global responsibility to bring about a just peace,” concluded Dr. Ashrawi.
