National Assembly of Slovenia. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – Slovenia has postponed a controversial vote on recognizing Palestinian statehood.

Slovenia’s STA press agency reported that the parliament’s Foreign Policy Committee suspended a session on the recognition of Palestinian statehood on Wednesday, pending an official government position on the issue. Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec said that the government will likely discuss the issue next week.

Earlier this month, Erjavec said that Slovenian recognition would “strengthen Palestine’s negotiation in the Middle East peace process.”

Israel has urged Slovenia against recognizing Palestinian statehood. According to Israel’s Channel 10, Israeli Ambassador to Slovenia Eyal Sila warned Speaker of the Slovenian Parliament Milan Brglez and the chair of the Foreign Policy Committee Jozef Horvat against the move.

While Sweden is currently the only country to recognize Palestinian statehood since joining the European Union, several Eastern European countries – Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania – all recognized Palestine as a state before joining the EU, as well as Malta and Cyprus.

At the same time, several Western European country’s parliaments, such as Spain, Portugal, France and Ireland, have symbolically recognized Palestinian statehood in recent years.