West Bank: Despite pressure from US and threats from Israel, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas vowed “no retreat” from plans to seek full UN membership for a Palestinian state next week.
Talking to an Egyptian TV, he said that, “Going to the United Nations to request full membership for Palestine in the international organisation is an inevitable thing and there is no retreat from it, Despite the pressures exercised on us, Palestine will go to the United Nations on the 23rd of the current month to request full membership”.
Washington wants the Palestinians to drop their plan to declare an independent state, arguing that Palestinian independence should be the result of peace talks with Israel.
The Palestinians say US-backed peace talks are frozen, leaving them no choice but to take their case for a state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem to the United Nations.
The territories were occupied by Israel in a 1967 war.
US Middle East peace envoy David Hale and senior White House aide Dennis Ross, who met Israeli and Palestinian leaders last week, were due to meet Abbas on Thursday.
European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton extended a Middle East trip on Wednesday to hold more talks aimed at averting the UN bid, EU officials said.
Israel is strongly opposed to the Palestinian UN bid, and US says the move is unhelpful to its Middle East diplomacy and has pledged to use its Security Council veto to block the request for full membership.
Anticipating that outcome, Palestinian officials have indicated they could table a resolution in the General Assembly that would upgrade their status to a “non-member state” from an “entity”.
Speaking about that option, Abbas cited benefits including the access it would give the Palestinians to the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.
“This is what Israel and America do not want,” he said.
The last round of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians broke down almost a year ago because of a dispute over the expansion of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank as Israel has always prolonged talked which are under way since 1990 and has been expanding settlements throughout the occupied Palestine.
