JERICHO: A senior Palestinian official hit back at Donald Trump on Friday after the US president said he would withhold aid to the Palestinians until they returned to peace negotiations.
Chief negotiator Saeb Erekat accused the US of acting in bad faith and denied that Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas had refused to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“The last offer for Netanyahu to come to meet Abu Mazen” came from Russian President Vladimir Putin who invited them both to the World Cup final in July, Erekat said, using the Arabic nickname for Abbas.
“Abu Mazen accepted and Netanyahu rejected, that is the truth,” he told journalists in English.
“And then we have some statements from the White House saying that we continue punishing the Palestinians until they come back to the negotiating table. Which negotiating table?“
Trump has repeatedly said he aims for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, but the Palestinians have refused to meet with his administration since the US leader controversially recognized the disputed city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017.
The Palestinians consider the annexed eastern sector of the city as their capital, and the status of Jerusalem is one of the thorniest issues in their conflict with Israel.
Erekat said Trump’s decision had violated a pledge he made to Abbas in May 2017 that his administration would not adopt any radical steps for 12 months to encourage peace talks.
The Trump administration has cut funds to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees and also scrapped around $200 million in payments by USAID to the Palestinians.
A much vaunted peace proposal has been delayed multiple times.
Trump said Thursday he had cut the funds to force the Palestinians to negotiate.
“The United States was paying them tremendous amounts of money. And I’d say, you’ll get money, but we’re not paying you until we make a deal. If we don’t make a deal, we’re not paying,” he told Jewish leaders in Washington.
“I think it’s disrespectful when people don’t come to the table.”
US-brokered peace talks have been frozen since they collapsed in 2014 amid mutual accusations of blame.
Erekat said the Trump administration’s policies were weakening moderates and encouraging radicals across the Middle East.
“If the art of their negotiations is to put us in a position where we have nothing to lose, I think they succeeded,” he said, referring to the president’s business credentials.
Palestinians reject Trump bid to force talks through aid cut
Palestinians reject Trump bid to force talks through aid cut
- Chief negotiator Saeb Erekat accused the US of acting in bad faith.
- He also denied that Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas had refused to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Amnesty says Algeria unlawfully returned Tunisia asylum seeker
- Amnesty International said Makhlouf was handed over to Tunisian police on January 18 without prior notice to him or his lawyers, in a move the group called “unlawful refoulement”
TUNIS: Global rights group Amnesty accused Algerian authorities on Monday of breaching international law by forcibly returning a political dissident to Tunisia, even though he was a registered asylum seeker.
Seifeddine Makhlouf, a former parliamentarian and critic of Tunisian President Kais Saied, was reportedly sentenced to prison for “plotting against state security” before his return to the North African country.
Makhlouf, who is the leader of the Al Karama party, sought asylum in Algeria in July 2024 after facing detention in Tunisia, and registered as an asylum seeker with the UN refugee agency UNHCR.
Amnesty International said Makhlouf was handed over to Tunisian police on January 18 without prior notice to him or his lawyers, in a move the group called “unlawful refoulement.”
“Makhlouf’s forced return is a violation of the principle of non-refoulement,” Amnesty’s MENA deputy chief Sara Hashash said in a statement published by the group.
“By handing him over to Tunisian authorities without allowing him any opportunity to contest the decision or assessing the risks he faces in Tunisia... Algeria has breached its obligations under international human rights law, including the Refugee Convention,” she added.
Saied froze parliament in July 2021 and seized far-reaching executive powers in what critics have called a “coup.”
Since then, local and international NGOs have denounced a regression of rights and freedoms in Tunisia.
Amnesty said Makhlouf was later imprisoned in Algeria for irregular entry and placed in administrative detention, during which he was denied access to the UN refugee agency.
The rights group said Makhlouf was arrested upon his arrival in Tunisia to serve sentences handed down in his absence.
Reports said a Tunisian court sentenced Makhlouf on January 13 to five years in prison for “plotting against state security.”
The Amnesty statement called for “verdicts rendered in absentia to be quashed and for a new and fair trial to be held before an independent and impartial court.”
Hashash warned that Makhlouf’s case reflects wider regional repression, calling his extradition “particularly alarming given the escalating crackdown on dissent in Tunisia, where the judiciary has been increasingly weaponized to silence political opposition.”
She said that Algeria’s actions “set a dangerous precedent,” adding that “bilateral cooperation now takes precedence over the most fundamental principles of international human rights and refugee law.”
