Euro-Parliament presses US on 'legitimate' Palestinian UN bid
(STRASBOURG) - The European parliament pressed the United States and the European Union on Thursday to respond to the Palestinians' "legitimate demand" to be represented as a state at the United Nations.
With Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in limbo, the European MPs made their plea in a resolution adopted in a show of hands ahead of a US-EU summit in Washington on November 28.
The parliament urged the United States and the EU to "address the legitimate demand of the Palestinians to be represented as a state at the United Nations as a result of negotiations within the UN framework."
The parliament had asked the 27 EU states to be united on the issue as governments diverged over whether to back the Palestinian bid.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas applied for full UN membership on September 23 despite US and Israeli opposition.
Britain and France, which have veto power at the UN Security Council, have declared that they would abstain if the 15-member world body votes on the application.
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