Palestinian UN bid under fire from Washington

A draft resolution calling for an independent Palestinian state to be recognised will be presented to the United Nations Security Council within three weeks, according to a Palestinian source.

The proposal will also be discussed in talks between the US and Palestinians next week.

"The aim of the talks [with Washington] is to pressure the Palestinian leadership to postpone presenting the draft resolution, not to understand the Palestinian position - which was explained to the US government by chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, and head of the Palestinian intelligence services Majed Faraj when they visited Washington in September," said our informed source.

"The US administration wants the draft resolution to be free of a binding commitment to establish a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, create a clear timetable for the end of the occupation, or to give Palestinians international protection."

The US wants Israeli-Palestinian talks to be deliberately ambiguous, and held under its sponsorship - not through the UN, he added.

The US wants Israeli-Palestinian talks to be ambiguous.

US Secretary of State John Kerry recently said that Palestinians and Israelis had opened new negotiation channels.

"Kerry's statements are meant to absolve the US and EU of any responsibility but this is nothing new," Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki told Voice of Palestine radio.

Maliki added that when he met Kerry at the Gaza reconstruction conference in Cairo earlier this month it was clear "he did not have any specific plans about how to return to negotiations". 

This article is an edited translation from our Arabic edition.