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Irish parliament passes motion urging government to recognise Palestine

October 23, 2014 at 12:42 pm

The Upper House of Ireland’s parliament yesterday passed a non-binding motion calling on the Dublin government to recognise the State of Palestine, making it the third European country to throw its weight behind Ramallah’s unilateral statehood bid in less than a month.

The motion, proposed by Averil Power, an Irish Senator from the Republican Party, the main opposition party in Ireland, was passed without a vote, as it had received backing from a majority of senators before the discussion.

The Irish Senate is the highest house in the Irish parliament and consists of 60 senators.

The motion called on “the [Irish] government to formally recognise the State of Palestine and do everything it can at the international level to help secure a viable two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

The new Swedish government declared it would recognise a Palestinian state earlier this month, and the British House of Commons voted in favour of a non-binding resolution calling on London to do the same.

Last week, the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party submitted a proposal to the Spanish Congress calling for the recognition of Palestine, but no vote has yet been scheduled.