Report: PA recalls its US envoy

Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki on Sunday recalled PLO Ambassador in Washington Husam Zomlot, official PA media reported.

Maliki recalled the top Palestinian diplomat in the US capital for “consultations,” the report said, without elaborating.

About an hour after the report was posted on official PA media outlets, it was removed. Zomlot and Majdi al-Khalidi, Abbas’s adviser for diplomatic affairs, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The report comes after a diplomatic row between the Palestinians and US President Donald Trump over the latter’s recent changes to American policy on Jerusalem.

In early December, Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and initiated a process to relocate the US Embassy in Tel Aviv to the holy city, breaking with decades of American policy. Nonetheless, the US president said the final status of Jerusalem would be up to Israel and the Palestinians to decide.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has reacted to Trump’s decisions, saying the Palestinians would no longer work with the US as an interlocutor in the peace process between themselves and Israel.

“We do not want America… After these decisions, we will not accept them… As long as they act like this, we do not want them,” Abbas told the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in a speech in mid-December, referring to Trump’s Jerusalem decisions.

Zomlot arrived in the American capital in April and previously served as an adviser to Abbas for strategic affairs.