Japan rules out Palestinian state recognition

Tokyo won’t join other countries in recognizing unilateral Palestinian statehood at the United Nations next week, reportedly over concerns that such a move could impact ties to the US.

By World Israel News Staff

The Japanese government has decided not to join a number of other countries in recognizing unilateral Palestinian statehood at the United Nations next week, according to local media reports.

Britain, France, Australia, Belgium, and Canada have all signaled they will formally recognize the Palestinian Authority’s unilateral declaration of statehood at the United Nations General Assembly High-Level Week, which kicks off next Tuesday.

According to a report by the Asahi Shimbun, an Osaka-based daily, Tokyo will not join in recognizing Palestinian statehood.

According to the report, which cited multiple unnamed government sources, the decision not to recognize unilateral Palestinian statehood was made partly because of concerns regarding how such a step could impact Japan’s relations with the Trump administration.

The US has lobbied Japan not to join in the French-led initiative, the report said.

In addition, Japan’s ruling center-right Liberal Democratic Party is said to fear that recognizing unilateral Palestinian statehood would not advance the two-state solution and could instead jeopardize it by prompting Israel to respond with its own unilateral steps.

France reportedly pressured Japan to join the growing list of countries slated to recognize the Palestinian Authority as a sovereign state.

According to a report last week by Kyodo News, France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, strongly urged Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya to back the initiative.

On Tuesday, Iwaya declined to take a stand on the question of recognition, telling reporters that Tokyo is in the midst of conducting a “comprehensive assessment, including appropriate timing and modalities, of the issue of recognizing Palestinian statehood.”

A day later, chief cabinet secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi criticized the IDF’s ongoing ground campaign in Gaza City, expressing a “grave sense of crisis” and warning that the “very foundations of a two-state solution could be collapsing.”

Last Friday, Japan voted in favor of a non-binding resolution in the UN General Assembly calling for “tangible, timebound, and irreversible steps” towards the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution.