The Palestinians are planning to take their quest for independence to the UN Security Council, aiming to secure international recognition for a state, the chief Palestinian negotiator said on Sunday. Saeb Erekat said there was no time frame for the diplomatic initiative. "When we are ready, we will go," he told Reuters.
"We have taken an Arab foreign ministers' decision to seek the help of the international community," he said. Palestinians attributed the move to frustration at the lack of progress in peace negotiations with Israel which have been stalled since last December.
Despite months of diplomacy, the United States has failed to broker a resumption of those talks between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Abbas has stuck by his demand for a total halt to Israeli settlement construction in the occupied West Bank before any return to peace talks. He has resisted recent US pressure to resume negotiations right away. Abbas, head of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, aims to establish a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, territories Israel captured in a 1967 war.
Mohammed Dahlan, a senior official from Abbas's Fatah faction, told reporters that the diplomatic initiative had been agreed by the Palestine Liberation Organisation executive which Abbas chairs.
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