São Paulo – The Vatican and the Palestinian State signed this Friday (25th) an agreement that determines the presence of the Catholic Church in the Gaza Strip and West Bank territories and by which the Vatican officially recognizes the Palestinian State. According to information from the Vatican Radio, the agreement will become effective when the two states report to each other that the terms meet local and constitutional norms.
The signing of the document is the result of a negotiation that started in the year 2000 and was called Global Agreement.
“For the first time the agreement includes the official recognition of Palestine as a state on the part of the Holy See, as a sign of the right of recognition of the Palestinian people to self-determination, freedom and dignity in an own independent state and free of the chains of occupation. This is a support in favor of the vision of peace and justice in the region, according to international law, based on two states that live in peace and security under the frontiers of 1967”, said the minister of Foreign Relations of Palestine, Riad al-Maliki, during the signing of the agreement.
In May, the Vatican had already recognized the state of Palestinian after the end of negotiations of the Global Agreement of 2000. Since 2013, the Vatican has referred to Palestine as a “State”. Now, the treaty was signed. The agreement was celebrated in the Vatican and was signed by the secretary of the Holy See for State Relations, Paul Richard Gallagher, and by al-Maliki.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
