US warns recognition of Palestine to multiply problems, delay truce

US warns recognition of Palestine to multiply problems, delay truce

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned on Thursday that international recognition of a Palestinian state would create further complications, urging countries to hold back from such a move.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio looks on as he speaks at an event. — Reuters/File

"We told all these countries, we told them all, we said if you guys do this recognition stuff, it's all fake, it's not even real, if you do it, you're going to create problems," Rubio said from Quito, where he met with President Daniel Noboa and his Ecuadorean counterpart.

"There's going to be a response, it's going to make it harder to get a ceasefire, and it may even trigger these sorts of actions that you've seen, or at least these attempts at these actions," Rubio said, adding he would not opine on Israeli discussion of annexation of the West Bank but that it was not final.

"What I am going to tell you is it was wholly predictable," he said.

"We told all these countries before they went out, and they did this... there wasn't going to be a Palestinian state, because that's not the way a Palestinian state is going to happen, because they have a press conference somewhere.

He also repeated his charge that the push to elevate the Palestinian Authority, which is based in the West Bank, emboldened rival Hamas in Gaza.