Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Trinidad and To­ba­go did not join dozens of del­e­ga­tions that walked out of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly (UN­GA) dur­ing Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu’s ad­dress on Thurs­day, with the coun­try’s UN Am­bas­sador Dr Neil Parsan say­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains com­mit­ted to a two-state so­lu­tion in which a se­cure Is­rael ex­ists along­side an in­de­pen­dent Pales­tin­ian state.

Parsan con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s del­e­ga­tion re­mained in the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly hall through­out Ne­tanyahu’s ad­dress, stress­ing that its pres­ence should not be in­ter­pret­ed as sup­port for his re­marks or as a change in the coun­try’s po­si­tion on the Is­raeli-Pales­tin­ian con­flict.

“Our seats re­mained and will re­main oc­cu­pied for all speak­ers at the UN­GA81,” Parsan said.

The clar­i­fi­ca­tion came af­ter dozens of del­e­gates walked out of the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly hall as Ne­tanyahu took to the podi­um in a dra­mat­ic protest against Is­rael’s ac­tions in Gaza.

Ne­tanyahu hit back at the de­part­ing del­e­gates, de­scrib­ing them as “moral cow­ards,” be­fore de­fend­ing Is­rael’s mil­i­tary ac­tions and re­ject­ing al­le­ga­tions of geno­cide in Gaza.

But Parsan said T&T’s de­ci­sion to re­main in the cham­ber should be viewed in the con­text of the coun­try’s stat­ed for­eign pol­i­cy.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go sup­ports a two-state so­lu­tion: a se­cure Is­rael liv­ing along­side an in­de­pen­dent Pales­tin­ian state,” Parsan said.

“We recog­nised the State of Pales­tine in 2024, and our re­cent vote at the Unit­ed Na­tions is con­sis­tent with that po­si­tion.”

He said re­main­ing in the As­sem­bly al­lowed T&T to lis­ten di­rect­ly to Ne­tanyahu’s ad­dress and con­tin­ue en­gag­ing on the Is­raeli-Pales­tin­ian is­sue through the UN.

“Our pres­ence should not be in­ter­pret­ed as agree­ment with the speech or as a change in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s po­si­tion on Pales­tine and Is­rael.”

Parsan al­so said he was un­aware of any oth­er Cari­com mem­ber state par­tic­i­pat­ing in the walk­out.

T&T’s de­ci­sion to re­main for Ne­tanyahu’s ad­dress comes days af­ter the coun­try again demon­strat­ed its sup­port for Pales­tine through its vot­ing record at the Unit­ed Na­tions.

T&T was among 152 coun­tries which vot­ed in favour of a Gen­er­al As­sem­bly res­o­lu­tion al­low­ing Pales­tin­ian Pres­i­dent Mah­moud Ab­bas to ad­dress the UN­GA high-lev­el de­bate vir­tu­al­ly af­ter the Unit­ed States pre­vent­ed him from trav­el­ling to New York.

The Unit­ed States, Is­rael and Paraguay vot­ed against the res­o­lu­tion, while Colom­bia, Hon­duras, Pana­ma and Pe­ru ab­stained.

That vote was con­sis­tent with T&T’s es­tab­lished po­si­tion on the con­flict and fol­lowed its sup­port ear­li­er this month for an­oth­er UN res­o­lu­tion con­cern­ing Pales­tine.

The Gov­ern­ment has main­tained that the coun­try’s po­si­tion was not al­tered by the change of ad­min­is­tra­tion fol­low­ing the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion.

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers reaf­firmed that po­si­tion dur­ing last year’s UN­GA, say­ing T&T’s sup­port for Pales­tine could co­ex­ist with its close diplo­mat­ic re­la­tion­ship with the Unit­ed States.