Striving furiously to ward off a showdown in UN, US President Barack Obama has cautioned world leaders that a Palestinian nation can't be created by a resolution, but only through hard negotiations.
Coming out in support of Israel in his UN General Assembly speech, Obama declared that bond between the US and the Jewish state were unbreakable and one side's actions in the UN will achieve neither statehood nor self-determination for the Palestinians.
The US backing for Tel Aviv came as France and the UK joined Washington in making frantic efforts to avert a diplomatic showdown, but Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas pressed ahead to pursue his plan to hand an application for statehood to UN chief Ban Ki-moon tomorrow.
Abbas went ahead towards a formal bid even after Obama told him in a meeting that UN action would not lead to a Palestinian state and threatened that Washington would veto such a move in the Security Council, the White House said.
As tempers continued to be stormy at the General Assembly meeting, French President Nicolas Sarkozy came up with a new formula urging UN to grant Palestinians the status of an observer state like the Vatican, while laying out road map for a one year time frame for peace.
With the Friday's deadline approaching, Obama and other world leaders assembled here made last minute efforts to get the proposed resolution dropped and make Israel and Palestinians to resume peace talks.
Obama held several round of talks on the sidelines of the session meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, British Prime Minister David Cameroon, French President Sarkozy, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda besides a 45- minute direct meeting with Abbas but failed to persuade him.
A frustrated Obama later said in the General Assembly
that there are no short cut to peace and it cannot be imposed on the parties and it is going to have to be negotiated.
"Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the UN," Obama told the delegates. "If it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now."
A year ago, Obama made a case for a Palestinian state, but in his speech he did not touch key issues such as end to constructions of Jewish settlements in the West Bank or Palestinians' demands that borders be drawn largely according to those that existed before the 1967 war.
While the Palestinians were stony to Obama, they warmed up to the proposal of French President Sarkozy, who said that his proposal meshed up with one drawn by the European Union.
Earlier, In a joint media availability with Netanyahu, Obama said: "The bonds between the US and Israel are unbreakable. And the United States' commitment to Israel?s security is unbreakable. I think it's fair to say that, today, our security cooperation is stronger than it has ever been."
In his meeting with Sarkozy, Obama praised the French role in Libya, saying "I want to thank President Sarkozy for his leadership, as a coalition helped the Libyan people achieve the kind of freedom and opportunity that they're looking for."
Obama also lauded Britain's role in Libya and said "We are keenly interested in finding a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On all these issues, I've always found Prime Minister Cameron to be an outstanding partner."
In his joint press meet with new Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, Obama said the strong alliance between the US and Japan needs to be modernized to meet the requirements of 21st century.
