The Palestinian Authority's Minister of Communication,abbas Safa Nassereddin, said on Tuesday that the first stamp to carry the name "State of Palestine" will be issued for the benefit of PA diplomatic offices abroad.

According to a report in the PA-based Wafa news agency, Nassereddin said that because issuing new stamps requires Israeli approval, it was decided that the new stamps will be printed in Bahrain, which has contributed to the cost of printing them, and will be used abroad.

The PA Communications Ministry said that the cost of printing new stamps is relatively high and because there are no special stamp printing machines within the PA, the stamps have to be printed abroad.

The stamps will be used on certain forms at diplomatic offices around the world, according to Wafa.

"The stamp around the world symbolizes the sovereignty of a state, and the stamp simply states that our address is the State of Palestine and that its capital is Jerusalem," said Nasseredin. She also announced a competition to design a stamp that will perpetuate "the UN's recognition of the State of Palestine."

The announcement on the stamp follows a series of steps taken by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to officially name the areas he controls "the State of Palestine".

He first ordered all of the PA's institutions to stop using the term "Palestinian National Authority" on official documents and replace it with the term 'the State of Palestine'.

Abbas then issued new guidelines ordering the PA government to re-issue passports, identity cards, registration documents, vehicle licenses, driver's licenses, stamps and postmarks.

Abbas's new guidelines dictate that a new emblem which reads "the State of Palestine" be placed on all re-issued documents.
His associates later seem to back down from the "State of Palestine" passport idea, saying the PA would hold off on issuing the passports in order to avoid conflict with Israel.