UN approves video address by Palestine’s Abbas after US visa refusal

20/9/2025 6:29

The United Nations

General Assembly voted on Friday to allow Palestinian President

Mahmoud Abbas to address the annual gathering of world leaders

next week via video after the United States said it would not

give him a visa to travel to New York.



The resolution received 145 votes in favor and five votes

against, while six countries abstained. It also allows Abbas and

any other high-level Palestinian officials to take part in U.N.

meetings or conferences via video over the next year if they are

prevented from traveling to the United States.



The U.S. said last month that Abbas and about 80 other

Palestinians would be affected by its decision to deny and

revoke visas from members of the umbrella Palestine Liberation

Organization and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.



"U.S. opposition to this resolution should come as no

surprise," U.S. diplomat Jonathan Shrier said before the

vote. "The Trump Administration has been clear: we must hold the

PLO and Palestinian Authority accountable for not complying with

their commitments under the Oslo Accords, some of them very

basic, and for undermining the prospects for peace."