Palestinian resolution drafted to submit to UN Security Council

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Malki announced on Wednesday that the Arab Group of the General Assembly at the UN had approved a draft resolution to present to the UN Security Council calling for Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.

Al-Quds newspaper quoted Al-Maliki as saying, during a press conference at the ministry’s headquarters in Ramallah, that: “After a series of deliberations and consultations with the Arab Group at the United Nations, the Arab states have now approved a draft resolution.”

Al-Maliki reportedly added that “Jordan, as a representative to the Arab Group at the Security Council, will submit the project within three weeks,” adding that “very slight modifications have been made by the Arab nations and now we will submit the draft to the wider groups of United Nations, which includes the European, African and Latin American groups, as well as the unbiased countries, before submitting the draft formally [to the Security Council].”

Al-Maliki said that the presiding of the Security Council by Argentina this month “will facilitate the process of deliberations after the submission of the application”.

He also explained that: “We will consider any state that does not vote in favour of the draft resolution being submitted to the UN Security Council as not supporting the two-state solution, but rather supporting the continuation of the occupation.”

“We want to set a deadline for ending the Israeli occupation of the state of Palestine,” he added.

President Mahmoud Abbas said earlier on Tuesday, during a meeting with a number of journalists and writers, that: “[The Palestinians] will go to the UN Security Council to demand an end to the occupation and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with its capital in East Jerusalem.”