U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that Washington had harsh words for world leaders, who have said that they plan to recognize an independent Palestinian state.
“We told all these countries, ‘If you guys do this recognition stuff—it’s all fake, it’s not even real,” Rubio told reporters during a diplomatic visit to Quito, Ecuador. “If you do it, you’re going to create really big problems.”
The secretary, who is also the U.S. national security advisor, also told reporters that it was “wholly predictable” that the Israeli government would hold discussions on applying sovereignty in Judea and Samaria in response to France and others saying they would recognize a Palestinian state.
“There’s going to be a response from Israel,” Rubio said. “You’re going to make it harder to get a ceasefire, and it may even trigger these sorts of actions.”
Rubio said a Palestinian state won’t commence “because they have a press conference somewhere.”
He added that Hamas walked away from the last round of negotiations “the minute” that France announced its pending recognition of a Palestinian state. (Some media reports suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said talks broke down some five hours before Paris’s pronouncement.)
“Sometimes these guys don’t listen,” Rubio said. “They do what they’re going to do because of their own domestic politics, which is fine. But these are consequences.”
According to an English translation released by the U.S. State Department, Gabriela Sommerfeld, the Ecuadorian foreign minister, told reporters that the country “has a very clear position.”
“We have rejected terrorist actions caused on Oct. 7,” and “we are against any terrorist act or any action against civilians.”
“On the other hand, Ecuador has supported from day one the position of Israel, of returning every single one of the persons that were held as hostages, civilians, civilian hostages,” Sommerfeld said. “We historically recognize two territories, two countries. They have a mission, diplomatic missions in our territory. This is historically true in Ecuador.”
“We think this has to be solved soon to prevent suffering and make it clear that we will never support terrorism,” the foreign minister added.
