Washington, August 9 (LaPresse) – U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that France’s announcement of its intention to recognize the Palestinian state led to a breakdown in ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas and encouraged the Palestinian fundamentalist group. “Talks with Hamas failed the day Macron made the unilateral decision to recognize the Palestinian state,” Rubio said in an interview with the Catholic network Eternal Word, according to Times of Israel. “And then there are other people stepping forward, other countries saying, ‘Well, if there is no ceasefire by September, we will recognize a Palestinian state.’ If I were Hamas, I would basically conclude that we don’t make a ceasefire, we can be rewarded, we can claim it as a victory,” Rubio said. “So those messages, even if largely symbolic in their minds, actually made it harder to achieve peace and harder to reach an agreement with Hamas.”
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