U.S. President Barack Obama’s recent assertion that the United Nations will never vote for an independent Palestinian state represented a “complete turnabout” by the White House, a Palestinian group said in Moscow on Tuesday.
Obama proposed last week that Israel withdrew to its pre-1967 Israeli-Arab war borders in exchange for recognition by the Muslim world. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu equivocally rejected the plan.
“No vote at the United Nations will ever create an independent Palestinian state,” Obama said later on Sunday. “The United States will stand up against efforts to single Israel out at the United Nations or in any international forum.”
The deal could have seen Israel hand over the Golan Heights to Syria and the Palestinians establish a state capital in east Jerusalem.
The Palestinians will seek to achieve statehood at a UN vote this September. A U.S. veto would, however, likely prove too large an obstacle to overcome.
The State of Palestine has so far been recognized by 112 UN member nations and by September is hoping to acquire 135 recognitions, a majority two-thirds of the 192 UN members.
“The U.S. over the last few days made their first positive statement in regard to Palestine,” the deputy head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Talal Naji, said at a press conference in Moscow after meetings with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
“However, in the next 24 hours it made a complete turnabout,” Naji added.
Senior members of Palestinian political factions, including Hamas and Fatah, signed on Monday a Moscow Declaration of Unity, detailing a reconciliation deal between the two factions signed in May in Cairo.
The agreement opens the way to new elections to form a single new government in the Palestinian Territories. The deal would unite the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which have been divided between Hamas and Fatah for years.
MOSCOW, May 24 (RIA Novosti, David Burghardt)