Erdogan demands US walk back ban on Palestinian Authority officials entering country

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan says the United States should urgently revise its decision to revoke the visas of Palestinian officials and bar them from attending a gathering of world leaders at the United Nations this month in New York.

Washington said last week it would not allow Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and others to travel to New York, where several US allies are set to recognize Palestine as a state.

The move “does not fit the United Nations’ raison d’etre,” Erdogan tells reporters on a flight home from China, according to a readout from his office. “The decision needs to be urgently revised. The United Nations General Assembly exists for the issues of the world to be discussed and for solutions to be found.”

“The Palestinian delegation not being at the General Assembly would only please Israel,” he adds. “What is expected from the United States is to say ‘stop’ to Israel’s massacres, cruelty.”

The State Department justified its decision on barring Abbas and others by reiterating longstanding US and Israeli allegations that the Palestinian Authority and the umbrella Palestine Liberation Organization had failed to repudiate extremism while pushing for “unilateral recognition” of a Palestinian state.

The General Assembly opens on September 9, but leaders are set to meet in New York later in the month amid growing criticism over Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.