The Palestinians will approach the U.N. Security Council in September to seek full membership in the global body, said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday.
“We are going to the Security Council through a request to the Secretary-General of the United Nations to seek full membership in the U.N. and recognition of Palestine on the 1967 borders,” he said.
Mr. Abbas made the remarks in an address to the PLO Central Council, which is meeting in Ramallah to endorse the United Nations membership bid. He told the Council that 122 nations had already recognised a Palestinian state on the lines that existed before the 1967 Six Day War, which would include the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.
Mr. Abbas insisted that seeking U.N. membership did not contradict a commitment to negotiations, adding that the international community, including the Middle East Quartet of peacemakers, had proved incapable of pressuring Israel to halt settlement construction and accept the 1967 lines as a basis for talks.
“Our first, second and third choice is peaceful negotiations,” he said. “But after the failure of the Quartet to lay out foundations for the negotiations, which are a halt to settlement building and using the 1967 borders as a basis for the Palestinian state, it is now too late for negotiations,” he said. — AFP
