COPENHAGEN: Denmark is not ruling out the possibility of recognising Palestinian statehood as long as it is democratic, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Tuesday.
“We’re not saying no to recognising Palestine as a state,” she told reporters.
“We’re in favor of it. We have been for a long time. It’s what we want. But of course, we have to be sure that it will be a democratic state,” she added.
On Sunday, more than 10,000 people marched in a protest in central Copenhagen calling for an end to the war in Gaza and urging Denmark to recognise Palestinian statehood.
In an interview with the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten on August 16, Frederiksen said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “now a problem in himself,” and that his Israeli government was going “too far.”
“Netanyahu’s continued and very violent actions in Gaza are unacceptable,” she wrote on Facebook.
Recognition of a Palestinian state must serve “the right goal,” she stressed on Tuesday.
“It must come at a time when it genuinely benefits a two-state solution. And where a lasting and democratic Palestinian state can be guaranteed,” she said.
“And it must, of course, be done with (Hamas’s) mutual recognition of Israel.”
In the meantime, Denmark plans to use its current EU presidency to increase pressure on Israel.
“It will be difficult to rally the necessary support, but we will do everything we can,” she said.
At least 75 Palestinians, including 17 aid seekers, were killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza over the past 24 hours, the territory’s health ministry said on Tuesday, as the famine crisis deepens amid stalled truce efforts.
The health ministry said that since October 2023, the ongoing Israeli military offensive in Gaza has killed more than 62,819 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 158,629 others. The ministry said that the number of people killed while seeking aid had risen to 2,140 since late May.
