New Delhi: Interpol voted on Wednesday to accept Palestine as a full member state.
The decision came despite Israeli efforts to delay a vote and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that the Palestinians’ joining the global police agency is a breach of signed agreements with Israel.
Israel had argued that Palestine is not a state and that it is ineligible to join. Under interim Israeli-Palestinian peace deals, a Palestinian Authority was granted limited self-rule in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
“This victory was made possible because of the principled position of the majority of Interpol members,” Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki said in a statement.
Interpol said membership applications by the State of Palestine and the Solomon Islands were approved at its annual general assembly by more than the required two-thirds majority of votes. The organization now has 192 members.
Last year, at an Interpol conference in Indonesia, the Palestinian bid to join the Interpol was foiled by Israel through diplomatic campaign against it.
In 2012, the U.N. General Assembly upgraded the Palestinian Authority’s observer status at the United Nations to “non-member state” from “entity”, like the Vatican.
The step had important legal implications in enabling the Palestinians to join the International Criminal Court and other world bodies.
Netanyahu also raised the Palestinian refusal to condemn an attack on Tuesday in which a Palestinian laborer shot dead three Israeli guards in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
“The actions of the Palestinian leadership in the past few days directly harm the prospects of achieving peace and the Palestinian diplomatic offensive will not go unanswered,” the statement said.
The Israelis are concerned that the Palestinians will use Interpol as a platform to continuously provoke Israel by asking the organization to issue arrest warrants against Israeli citizens.
The approval vote requires the Palestinians to pay membership dues worth 0.03 percent of the Interpol budget.
Interpol, based in Lyon, France, is an intergovernmental organization facilitating international police cooperation against cross-border terrorism, trafficking and other crime.
