PA to seek UN resolution condemning W.Bank building

In separate meetings Erekat informs US, EU of intent to turn to UN in hope that new resolution would condemn construction as illegal.

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
Saeb Erekat 311 AP (photo credit: AP)
Saeb Erekat 311 AP
(photo credit: AP)
The Palestinian Authority on Thursday informed the US and EU of its intention to request a UN Security Council resolution that condemns construction in West Bank settlements and east Jerusalem.
The announcement was made during separate meetings held by Chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat with US Consul- General Daniel Rubenstein and EU representative to the Palestinian territories Christian Berger.
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Erekat said that the PA was hoping that the resolution would condemn the construction as illegal and in violation of international law.
He said that the PA was still insisting that any peace talks with Israel be resumed from the point where they ended and not from point zero.
Erekat said that in any case the basis for the talks should be the 1967 borders, although the PA does not rule out the idea of a “slight” land swap with Israel.
The PA won’t return to the negotiating table unless Israel freezes construction in the settlements and east Jerusalem, he stressed.
Erekat appealed to the EU members to follow suit with some South American countries and recognize a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders “if they want to preserve the two-state solution.”
PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad was quoted as saying that there was no need for a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state because the PLO had made such a declaration in 1988 in Algiers. He said that the state that was announced back then has thus far been recognized by 105 countries.
Fayyad, who was speaking in the Jordanian capital of Amman, said that Israel did not want to offer the Palestinians something that they could accept.
He complained that divisions among the Palestinians were delaying the establishment of a Palestinian state next year.
Fayyad said that he was nevertheless determined to pursue his efforts to declare a Palestinian state next year. “We will make it a fact on the ground – one that can’t be ignored,” he stressed. “A state will unify the Palestinians.”
Fayyad, like many senior PA officials, expressed disappointment with the US administration for failing to put pressure on Israel to stop building in the settlements and east Jerusalem. He denounced as “dangerous” any US assurances to Israel in return for extending a moratorium on the construction.