A pessimistic Palestinian leadership today warned of turning to the UN to fulfill their aspirations as US Secretary of State John Kerry seeks to secure a "framework" for a final Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement during his tenth visit to the region.
The Palestinian leadership anticipates that Kerry will exert pressure on the Palestinian Authority (PA) to extend the talks with Israel beyond the original nine-month deadline agreed in July, when it resumed after a three-year deadlock.
"Most of the Palestinian leadership - both from Fatah and from the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO)'s executive committee - are opposed to extending the talks due to recognition that in recent months no progress has been achieved," Palestinian officials said.
President of the PA Mahmoud Abbas will find it difficult to make a decision to extend the talks beyond the April deadline unless he has a substantial accomplishment to show for the negotiations, sources from his Fatah party said.
"Most of the leadership is urging Abbas to turn to the United Nations," they said.
Realising the popular sentiment among his officials and masses, Abbas reiterated his threat to seek UN recognition of a Palestinian state should Israel pursue construction in the settlements.
Addressing Palestinians on the 49th anniversary of the founding of his Fatah party - the largest faction of the PLO - Abbas denounced settlements as "cancer".
He said the PA maintained the right to use its status as a non-member observer in the UN to take diplomatic, political and legal action to halt settlement construction.
Abbas rejected the idea of reaching an interim agreement with Israel, saying he insists on a final peace deal.
"We are negotiating to reach a solution that would immediately lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital, on all the lands that were occupied in 1967," he said.
"We also seek a just solution to the case of the refugees on the basis of UN Resolution 194, and the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative," Abbas asserted.
Kerry is scheduled to meet separately Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Abbas soon after his arrival here this afternoon to discuss his ideas for a "framework" towards a final Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
The guidelines for the framework document are expected to call for the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 lines, with mutually agreed upon land swaps, and for Palestinian recognition of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people.
However, Abbas had said on numerous occasions that he has no intention of recognising Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.
The guidelines are also expected to contain formulae for other core issues such as Palestinian refugees and Jerusalem.
