New Zealand ambassador rejected by Israel
Ha’aretz has reported that New Zealand’s recently appointed ambassador to Israel has been refused permission to present his credentials as he is also ambassador to the Palestinian Authority.
Ambassador Jonathan Curr
Jonathan Curr was recently appointed ambassador to Turkey where the New Zealand mission centres its diplomatic mission regionally including Israel.
The paper reports that there are no official diplomatic ties with Palestine but ambassador Curr has a letter informing President Abbas that he deals with diplomatic matters concerning the PA.
Ha’aretz reports: “When the Foreign Ministry heard this, officials informed Curr that this violated diplomatic protocol. They noted that since the Oslo Accords, Israel had firm rules that forbade a foreign ambassador to be credentialed to both Israel and the PA, and that unless his “dual credentials” were canceled, he could not serve as ambassador to Israel.”
J-Wire has requested comments from the NZ government.
NZ government trying to do diplomacy on the cheap?
Such a shame really, as the Ambassador Curr could have assisted the Israeli Government’s in achieving a 2 State solution, which all Israelis clearly desire.
A tongue in cheek response, or did I misunderstand the first one…..
A week ago you had the NZ Foreign Minister publicly stating his concern about the “land grab” in Palestine instead of going through the correct protocol, this week a NZ ambassador with a leg in two camps…..
Previous New Zealand ambassadors have done the same. He is not ambassador to Palestine, he is already ambassador to Turkey and were his predecessors. Israel has seen no problem in that.
What an unfortunate development.
I would have thought that the Israeli Government would want to keep any diplomatic back channels open to assist in its negotiations for a 2 State solution.
Clearly the New Zealand Government was also under that impression.