Days of Palestine, Reports –Palestinian Authority is seeking a UN Security Council vote on a deadline – November 2016 – for Israeli withdrawal from West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Riyad Mansour, UN ambassador of the Palestinian Authority (PA), a non-member observer in the organisation, said on Friday the proposed resolution was seen as a way out of the constantly failing US-brokered negotiations with the Israeli occupation.
The Palestinians will not go back “to the same kind of negotiations that have led us nowhere for more than 20 years,” he said, according to AP.
Last round of the talks dropped in April after nine fruitless months of futile meetings had brought no agreement on the ground rules.
Mansour added that the imminent defeat of the resolution would not mean a dead end for the state: “This is not going to be an open-ended exercise.” He added: “The main option is to go with a vote.”
Samantha Power, US Ambassador, said earlier this month the only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is through negotiations between the two parties.
Mansour said the Palestinians are committed to voting on the resolution and “the centrepiece of our resolution is the time frame.”
In case the resolution fails in the UN Security Council, Mansour said the Palestinians may also try their luck with the General Assembly, a UN organ where all 193 members are represented. There are no vetoes for resolutions, although, they are not legally binding.
The Palestinian Ambassador says another way out is to “create legal facts on the ground that we exist as a state” by joining additional treaties and conventions and the International Criminal Court (ICC), which would further “acknowledge that a Palestinian state does exist.”
In October 2012, the UN General Assembly voted to grant Palestine non-member observer status, and it gained the right to become a member in UN institutions, treaty bodies, and to address the ICC over Israeli settlement-building on occupied land.
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