Last week, an unnamed Palestinian Authority official claimed that Rami Hamdallah received an official invitation to visit the US. Rami Hamdalla will be the Prime Minister of the Hamas-Fatah Palestinian Authority unity government.
At Friday’s press briefing, State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki called the Palestinian Authority official a liar.
QUESTION: The Palestinians claim that the United States issued an invitation to Rami Hamdallah, who is the prime minister of the Palestinians, past and present. He’s been asked to form a government – a national unity government. Is that true? Could you confirm that he’s been issued an invitation? And if that is true, then does that mean that he will work with a national unity government that includes Hamas?
MS. PSAKI: Well, there has been no invitation issued to Prime Minister Hamdallah. As we’ve said all along, we’ll not make decisions until we see the final formation of the interim government and have the opportunity to assess and make a determination about whether this is a government we can work with. And we will base that assessment on the government’s composition, policies, and actions. So we’ll have to take a look when any official announcement is made.
QUESTION: So the claim made by this Palestinian official is just plain false?
MS. PSAKI: Correct.
The Hamas-Fatah unity government is expected to be announced on Monday.