BICOM

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas called for an international peace conference and recognition of the State of Palestine during a speech to the UN Security Council yesterday.

Abbas said:  “We call for the convening of an international peace conference by mid-2018, based on international law and the relevant UN resolutions, with broad international participation and including the two concerned parties and the regional and international stakeholders.”

He laid out three key demands, which were: “Acceptance of the State of Palestine as a full member of the United Nations… mutual recognition between the State of Palestine and the State of Israel on the basis of the 1967 borders… [and the] formation of an international multilateral mechanism that will assist the two parties in the negotiations to resolve the permanent status issues defined in the Oslo Accords.”

Abbas’s demand for an international peace conference comes after sustained criticism of the US from key Palestinian figures. They claim that the US can no longer be a neutral broker in peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians following US President Donald Trump’s Jerusalem announcement last December.

The PA President said that he was ready to enter peace talks now but said that settlement construction, including in Jerusalem, had to end.

Responding to Abbas, Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Danny Dannon, criticised him for immediately leaving the Security Council chamber at the end of his speech and said that an international conference “is not the way to achieve peace. You cannot avoid direct negotiations. You have made it clear with your words and with your actions, that you are no longer part of the solution. You are the problem”.

US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said that the US is still ready to facilitate peace talks. She said: “The Palestinian leadership has a choice to make between two different paths. There is the path of absolutist demands, hateful rhetoric and incitement to violence. That path has led, and will continue to lead, to nothing but hardship for the Palestinian people… Or you can choose to put aside your anger about the location of our embassy, and move forward with us toward a negotiated compromise that holds great promise for improving the lives of the Palestinian people. Our negotiators are sitting right behind me, ready to talk. But we will not chase after you. The choice, Mr President, is yours.”