Palestine under pressure to back down statehood bill: FM
The Palestinian government has faced growing pressure by the United States and some European and Arab countries to back down on a statehood bill at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), says the country’s foreign minister.
Despite all pressures, Palestinian officials "are determined to approach the UN Security Council,” Riyad al-Malki told Voice of Palestine Radio on Sunday, adding, “but we still have not set a date for this move."
Malki added that Palestinian authorities have a plan to visit five countries that recently became members of the UNSC -- New Zealand, Venezuela, Angola, Malaysia, and Spain -- in a bid to win their support in case the draft resolution is submitted to the council.
In December last year, Palestinians presented a bid for statehood to the Security Council as Washington and Tel Aviv were formulating a joint opposition against the move.
The resolution needed to secure at least nine votes to be adopted by the 15-member council. However, it managed to garner only eight positive votes, as the US and Australia voted against the resolution and the UK, Rwanda, Nigeria, South Korea and Lithuania abstained.
The draft resolution designated occupied East al-Quds (Jerusalem) as the capital of a future Palestinian state, addressed the issue of Palestinians in Israeli prisons and demanded the end of Israeli occupation by 2017.
In November 2012, the United Nations General Assembly voted to upgrade Palestine’s status at the UN from "non-member observer entity" to "non-member observer state" despite strong opposition from Israel and the US.
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