THE Palestinian DELEGATION to the UN is pushing for a vote to recognize the state as a full member next month, Ambassador Riyad Mansour said on Wednesday, a move the United States opposes.
“We are seeking recognition. It is our natural and legal right,” Mansour said, adding that he was pushing for a vote at the Security Council on April 18.
“Everyone says ‘two-state solution’, so what is the logic in denying us membership?” he added.
Any request to become a UN member state must first go to a vote in the Security Council – where Israel’s allies, the United States and four other countries have veto power – and then be approved by a two-thirds majority in the General Assembly.
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas initially launched a request for statehood in 2011. This was not considered by the Security Council, but the General Assembly the following year granted more limited observer status to the “State of Palestine”.
The Palestinian Authority submitted a letter to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres asking the Security Council to reconsider.
Also read: Palestine wants to become a full member of the UN
US Opposition
Mansour’s comments came as the United States earlier on Wednesday voiced its opposition to full Palestinian membership. They say they support the creation of a state but following negotiating with Israel.
“We support the creation of an independent Palestinian state,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
“That is something that should be done through direct negotiations through the parties, something we are pursuing at the moment, and not at the UN,” he said, without explicitly saying that the United States would veto the offer if it reached an agreement with the Security Council. Board.
Also read: US wants a temporary ceasefire in Gaza, Hamas is reluctant
Miller said Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been actively involved in providing “security guarantees” for Israel as part of the foundation of a Palestinian state.
President Joe Biden’s administration has increasingly signaled support for a Palestinian state, with a reformed Palestinian Authority ruling the West Bank and Gaza, as it seeks ways to end the ongoing war in which Israel seeks to eliminate Hamas from Gaza. Peeling.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has for decades opposed a Palestinian state and led a right-wing government with members hostile to the Palestinian Authority, which holds limited autonomy in parts of the West Bank.
Also read: UN Security Council Reviews ICJ Decision, Algeria: Time of Israeli Impunity Has Ended
Under long-standing American law, the United States is required to cut funding to UN agencies that grant full membership to the Palestinian state.
The law is applied selectively. The United States stopped funding in 2011 and later withdrew from the UN cultural and scientific body UNESCO, but rejoined last year under President Joe Biden.
Robert Wood, the deputy US representative to the UN, said that recognition of a Palestinian state by the world body as a whole would mean “funding would be cut from the UN system, so we are bound by US law.”
“Our hope is that they don’t do that, but that’s up to them,” Wood said of the Palestinian offer. (AFP/Z-3)
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