Fourier transforms of spherical distributions on compact symmetric spaces

In our previous articles "A local Paley-Wiener theorem for compact symmetric spaces", Adv. Math. 218 (2008), 202--215, and "Fourier series on compact symmetric spaces" (submitted) we studied Fourier series on a compact symmetric space M=U/K. In particular, we proved a Paley-Wiener type theorem for the smooth functions on M, which have sufficiently small support and are K-invariant, respectively K-finite. In this article we extend those results to K-invariant distributions on M. We show that the Fourier transform of a distribution, which is supported in a sufficiently small ball around the base point, extends to a holomorphic function of exponential type. We describe the image of the Fourier transform in the space of holomorphic functions. We characterize the singular support of a distribution in terms of its Fourier transform. Finally, we use the Paley-Wiener theorem to characterize the distributions of small support, which are in the range of a given invariant differential operator.