Diplomatic efforts pushing to have Palestine recognized as a full member state by the UN have been continuing on two fronts, said Maged Abdel Fattah, Egypt's ambassador to the UN, in a press statement Thursday. The first path is to guarantee that two-thirds of the member states of the UN General Assembly vote for the recognition of the state's pre-1967 borders with Israel, giving Palestinians the right to participate in meetings of the UN's international organizations, Abdel Fattah said. The second is to gain the UN Security Council's recognition of Palestine as a full member state, Abdel Fattah said, noting that diplomatic efforts have been active over the past months to ensure that 128 countries will vote for the recognition of Palestine in the General Assembly at the end of September, and that 123 countries have already recognized it bilaterally. He said the US's potential use of a veto against the resolution would be a "step backward." Abdel Fattah added that many countries believe it is important to recognize Palestine in the General Assembly in order to give Palestinians the opportunity to participate in meetings of the UN's international organizations. The Palestinian Authority (PA) is seeking to obtain the General Assembly's recognition of Palestine, he said, even if the Security Council does not admit it as a full member state. He added that Egypt will respect any decision the PA makes. Meetings will be held in the coming few days between the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee - an Israeli-Arab political organization - and the Non-Aligned Movement - a group of countries considering themselves to be independent of any major international political power bloc - to further discuss efforts regarding the issue, Abdel Fattah said. Translated from the Arabic Edition
