Abbas Decisive over Seeking U.N. Membership, Rules Out ‘Confrontation’

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Wednesday that he isn’t after a “confrontation” with the United States or any other country over a bid for U.N. membership of a Palestinian state.

“The Palestinian people have the right to have a recognized state in the international community. This is our right,” Abbas told An Nahar.

Asked if he can secure nine votes out of the 15 Security Council members for its bid for U.N. statehood to pass the initial stages, on the assumption that none of permanent members of the Security Council would use the veto, Abbas told the daily “God willing.”

The U.S. has been leading the drive to stop the Palestinians submitting their application for full U.N. membership on Friday as threatened, and has vowed to veto any such bid to the U.N. Security Council.

A high-ranking Palestinian source told An Nahar that Abbas will not meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unless he announces to extend a moratorium on settlement building and agrees on renewing negotiations using the 1967 borders -- before the Six-Day war -- as a starting point for the contours of an eventual Palestinian state.

He said that Washington didn’t discuss the possibility of holding a meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and Abbas during their stay in New York, noting that the Palestinian delegation didn’t request “such a meeting.”

The sources said that the Middle East Quartet will not issue a statement until Friday, revealing that it would include in its statements a 20-day timeframe to re-launch the direct negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis, and a 6-month timeframe to reach an agreement.”

European nations are working behind the scenes to try to avert the confrontation, with the Middle East Quartet also seeking to draw up a statement that would coax Israel and the Palestinians back to talks.

“The Americans refute our right to asylum to the Security Council or for the General Assembly. They want us to head to negotiations and accept the Israeli conditions,” he said.

“We are ready to enter negotiations tomorrow if Netanyahu agrees on using the 1967 borders as a starting point for the establishment of a Palestinian state, and he halts the settlement building completely,” the source noted.

He added: “These borders can witness a slight change.”

Concerning the U.S. veto that it vowed to use if any such bid reached the U.N. Security Council, the source said: “We will get the needed nine votes, and if a veto was used, we will decide afterwards our next step that maybe heading to the U.N. General Assembly.”

However, heading the U.N. General Assembly to welcome the Palestinians as an enhanced observer non-member state is a rare case, a status so far enjoyed only by the Vatican.

An international diplomat told the daily that Abbas had not “scheduled a meeting with U.N. Chief Ban Ki-moon, but we know that the Secretary General can’t attend all meetings.”