US envoy to UN questions Palestinian right of return to Israel-occupied homeland
Tehran (KNA) - The US ambassador to the United Nations has questioned the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their occupied homeland, a basic Palestinian demand for any future deal with the Israeli regime, claiming the world body’s count of those refugees is an exaggeration.
Speaking on Tuesday at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based pro-Israel think tank, Nikki Haley said that the Palestinians' right of return should not be raised in any future Israeli-Palestinian talks.
Asked whether the issue should be "off the table," Haley replied, "I do agree with that, and I think we have to look at this in terms of what's happening (with refugees) in Syria, what's happening in Venezuela."
"So I absolutely think we have to look at the right of return," she added.
The Palestinian right of return is a political position or principle based on which Palestinian refugees are entitled to go back to the territories now occupied by Israel. They also have the right to the property they left behind or were forced to abandon when they were expelled from their homeland in the aftermath of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
The Palestinians have for years insisted on their right to return as part of any solution to their decades-long conflict with the Israeli regime.
Haley was in fact suggesting that the highly pro-Israel administration of President Donald Trump would consider an official rejection of that Palestinian demand as it prepares to unveil its so-called "deal of the century" on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The US envoy further questioned the UN's count of Palestinian refugees, which stands at over five million according to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
Source: PressTV