New Delhi [India], September 23 (ANI): Palestinian Ambassador to India Abdullah M Abu Shawesh has criticised the United States' decision to extend visa restrictions on members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and officials of the Palestinian Authority (PA), saying the move was "not strange" in view of Washington's approach to the Israeli military action in Gaza.

The US State Department announced the extension of sanctions denying visas to PLO members and PA officials last week, ahead of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), saying the two Palestinian bodies had "once again, failed to live up to their commitments" under US legislation governing their commitments to Washington.

The State Department said the PLO and PA had taken actions that it considered contrary to their commitments, including "initiating and supporting actions at international organisations that undermine and contradict prior commitments in support of Security Council Resolution 242 and 338."

Reacting to the restrictions, Abu Shawesh said Palestinians assess international actors based on their approach to the Palestinian struggle, invoking the example of former South African President Nelson Mandela.

"We used to say, and we will continue to say also, that we judge the people based on their attitude towards our struggle. And this is the issue or this is the wisdom that we had learned from the great leader Nelson Mandela, who taught us how to think when it came to global issues like this," he said.

Abu Shawesh then linked the latest US decision to Washington's conduct during the war in Gaza, arguing that the United States had moved away from what Palestine considers the role of a host country for the United Nations.

"This is not strange according to what we watched and what we witnessed from the USA during even the last three years of the genocidal war on Gaza. The USA started behaving not like a host country, which is its role according to the agreement, the host country agreement that was signed in the late 1940s between the USA and the United Nations. The USA has started behaving like the owner of the United Nations, the owner of the decisions on who will participate and not participate in the United Nations, not as a host country," he said.

"This is the logic when the USA is treating the world at large, and the Palestinians in particular, as something that they do not even care about," he added.

The US State Department, meanwhile, said the restrictions were being extended because of what it described as a failure by the PLO and PA to reform and comply with their commitments.

The department added that it had maintained the standing waiver for personnel notified to the PLO Observer Mission to the United Nations, as was the case in its prior determinations.

The extended restrictions would prevent Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas from travelling to New York ahead of his address to the UN General Assembly, marking the second consecutive year in which he has been prevented from attending the UNGA in person.

Abbas's expected address was set to focus on international recognition of Palestinian statehood and renewed momentum behind a two-state solution, along with the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the expansion of Israeli settlements and settler violence across the occupied West Bank.

Amid the visa restrictions, Abu Shawesh also reiterated that the Palestinian leadership's position on statehood and a two-state solution had remained unchanged since the beginning of the peace process.

Asked whether Abbas's upcoming pre-recorded UNGA address would push for a sovereign Palestinian state and the two-state solution, Abu Shawesh referred to the Palestinian leadership's position since the signing of the Oslo Accords.

"My president, likewise, every time, we have not changed our position since 33 years ago when we started the peace process itself. When we signed the Oslo Accords, we were looking for peace. We already sacrificed for peace to build our state, and this sacrifice came when we said that we would go to build our state on only 22 per cent of our historical land,' he said.

'When I say 22 per cent of our historical land, Palestine from the river to the sea was, before 1948, our historical land. Up to date, we still have its title deeds, so that we accepted, by signing the Oslo Accords, to build our state on only 22 per cent of our historical land. So President Abbas will go back to stress the same issue-not using the same wording, but the two-state solution is the resolution to the Palestinian issue," the ambassador added. (ANI)