BICOM

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday confirmed that he would seek non-member status for ‘Palestine’ at the United Nations when he attends the UN General Assembly meetings at the end of the month.

‘We will go to the UN General Assembly for consultations with our friends on the draft resolution calling for the upgrade of Palestine (to non-member status) in the United Nations’, Abbas said in a televised address from Ramallah. A bid for non-member status would be guaranteed an automatic majority in the General Assembly and would give ‘Palestine’ observer rights and membership in some UN-related forums.

Abbas in his address noted that there were numerous obstacles and pressures facing the PA, which are directed at preventing the application, including opposition from the US.  According to media reports, the Obama administration has been urging Abbas to desist from such a move before the US presidential elections in early November, and has been pushing instead for a resumption of Palestinian negotiations with Israel.

Last year, in September 2011, Abbas made a high-profile effort to obtain full-member status at the UN, to gain the binding authority of a Security Council resolution recognising Palestine as an independent state. The move failed, as the motion did not get sufficient support in the 15-member panel. In that vote Britain abstained, and, at the time, Foreign Secretary William Hague said that Britain’s vote on an application to the UN General Assembly would be judge on whether it made a return to negotiations more or less likely.