Arab League supports Abbas' draft to UN Security Council

The foreign ministers of the Arab League Council announced their support for the plan of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to ask the UN Security Council for a timeline to end Israel’s occupation and establish a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, Anadolu news agency reported.

The ministers commissioned the chief of the Arab League, Nabeel al-Arabi, to contact the current member states of the UN Security Council in order to recruit their support for Abbas’s plan.

In addition, the ministers endorsed Abbas’s call for parties to the Geneva Conventions to immediately hold a meeting in order to reconfirm the need to respect international conventions in the occupied Palestinian territories, including Jerusalem, and afford protection to the Palestinian people.

Abbas’s plan, which he presented to the Arab foreign ministers, stipulates that the US and Israel must recognise the Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. It also includes asking the UN Security Council to set an accepted timeline for the end of the occupation.

Regarding the Gaza Strip, the ministers called for all sister and friendly states to offer all forms of immediate support for the state of Palestine in order to be able to meet the urgent needs of its people in the Gaza Strip and to reconstruct the coastal enclave.

The ministers also condemned the continuous expansion of the illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories and the Judaisation of Jerusalem, considering all Israeli actions and decisions in this regard to be in violation of international law.

In their final statement, the ministers called for the release of all Palestinian prisoners without any preconditions. They also announced their support for the Palestinian unity government under the leadership President Abbas.