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Palestinians make final decision over requesting UN membership

08 September 2011 17:52 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The Palestinians on Thursday made their final decision on approaching the United Nations later in September to request the recognition of a full membership of the state of Palestine established on the territories occupied by Israel in 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital.

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) executive committee, chaired by Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and attended by his Fatah party and other factions representatives, decided in Ramallah on Thursday to go ahead with the submission at the UN which is to hold its annual conference in a few days, an official rejection to U.S. and Israeli objection.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, the executive committee secretary general, told a news conference here after the committee meeting that the success of the request "would help launch a serious peace process and resume real talks that aims at implementing the vision of the two-state solution."

"Approaching the United Nations and resuming real and serious peace talks with Israel can never be contradicted. We wish to resume the talks after it would be supported by an international consensus to achieve the principle of the two-state solution," said Abed Rabbo.

Before the PLO meeting, Fatah party’s leader Azzam el-Ahmad had told reporters that the Palestinians are sticking to their plans to approach the UN Security Council for their bid, despite Washington’s opposition and its veto threats.

The official Palestinian decision was made following a series of meetings Abbas and the Palestinian leadership had held over the last couple of days with American and European diplomats, who exerted extreme pressure on the Palestinians to avoid the UN bid and resume the peace talks with Israel.

Abbas had earlier described the plan of approaching the UN for membership "a historic step that might succeed and might fail." Abbas, who went out of the PLO meeting to meet with Palestinian campaigners, told them "we are facing tremendous pressures because we refused to change our position."

"But we have to know if we will succeed or we will fail in approaching the UN," said Abbas, who called on the Palestinians to go for peaceful popular rallies and demonstrations in the Palestinian territories and abroad to back the request for a full membership.

Members of the campaign, named "state number 194," gathered on Thursday in front of Abbas headquarters in Ramallah. They had earlier gathered in front of the UN headquarters in the city, chanting slogans that called on the international organization to recognize Palestine’s statehood.

The campaigners handed a letter to the UN representatives in the city. The letter is addressed to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon, urging him to push towards recognizing a full membership of the independent state of Palestine and ending the military occupation and settlement.

In a press statement, the campaign’s chief Hassan Balawi said that the campaign calls on the UN to bear its responsibility towards ending the Israeli military occupation in the Palestinian territories and give the Palestinians their legitimate right of self-determination.

Meanwhile, Mahmoud al-Zegg, a member of the Palestinian Struggle Front (PSF), which is a member in the PLO, revealed that the Islamic Hamas movement, which rules the Gaza Strip, had officially informed the PLO supporters and leaders of factions that rallies to back the bid are prohibited.

"The decision of the Hamas deposed government was officially transferred to the factions’ leaders," al-Zegg told Xinhua, adding that "there are intensive contacts with Hamas movement and its government in Gaza that it rules to allow peaceful and popular rallies to support the Palestinian bid."

Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007 by force and ousted Abbas’ security forces, has clearly announced that it opposes the Palestinian leadership’s bid to approach the UN. Hamas leaders said achieving an internal reconciliation is more important that going to the UN.