Slovenia officially recognized Palestine on Tuesday as a sovereign and independent state, having approved parliament with 52 votes in favor and none against the proposal of the center-left government.

Conservative and opposition party SDS of former Prime Minister Janez Jansa. boycotted the vote in the 90-seat House of Representatives given that the coalition violated the rules of parliament, while the deputies of the conservative NSI also abstained.

Slovenia, member of the European Union and NATO, Thus, it unites Spain, Norway and Ireland. which recognized Palestine last week.

Conservatives, who tried to delay the vote by calling a referendum on the issue, denounced that the centre-left coalition uses Palestinian recognition as a campaign issue ahead of the European elections this week.

Moreover, the opposition believes that recognition of Palestine comes at the wrong time and could be interpreted as a reward for terrorism.

According to Tuesday’s decision, Slovenia recognizes Palestine within the 1967 borders. or to which the parties involved agree in a future peace agreement.

Government led by a Liberal Prime Minister Robert Golob, believes that two state solution, Israel and Palestine, This is what can guarantee lasting peace in the Middle East, according to the adopted text.

Moreover, he believes that recognition of Palestine International pressure on Israel and the radical Islamist terrorist group Hamas will increase negotiate a lasting ceasefire and the release of more than a hundred Israeli hostages still held in the Gaza Strip.

Golob stressed to parliament that Slovenia should have recognized Palestine at least 32 years ago.since Palestine recognized the Slovenes’ right to self-determination.

“The right we have dreamed of for a thousand years was achieved just 33 years ago. Unfortunately, the Palestinian people have not yet achieved this right,” he said. Golob said, recalling that 146 countries around the world recognized Palestine, and Slovenia became the 147th.

He said that confession much greater weight precisely because of the current situation in the Gaza Strip, “for all the horrors, for the humanitarian catastrophe, for the countless victims of children, women, but also men, civilians, mostly innocent residents of Gaza.”

Jansa and SDS presented proposal for a consultative referendum on recognitionwhich, according to his interpretation and that of some other experts, should have delayed the vote by a month.

The SDF argued that recognition of Palestine as a state will harm Slovenia’s interests in the long term because it implies “support for the terrorist organization Hamas.”

He remembered this The Gaza Strip is controlled by the “terrorist organization Hamas”. who provoked the last war,” so if Slovenia had recognized the Palestinian state at this time, “it would have recognized, legitimized and justified all Hamas terrorist acts.”

Jansa however Today he withdrew the referendum proposal. shortly thereafter, reintroduce it, explaining that he had done so “for technical reasons,” and make certain improvements to the text.

The government coalition accused him of try to prevent confession through a series of maneuvers.

Having made sure that the possible vote on recognition of Palestine will be “zero”, Jansa and the SDS deputies left the House of Parliament.

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“The proposal for a consultative referendum was clearly abused. We are witnessing the abuse of institutions, which I, as President of the National Assembly, will not allow,” reacted the Speaker of Parliament, Urska Klakocar Zupancic, and the debate on Palestine continued.

(EFE)