Egypt supports Palestinian statehood UN resolution
Foreign minister pledges ‘full backing’ for text calling on Israeli withdrawal to 1967 lines by end of 2017
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CAIRO — Egypt said on Saturday it supports a draft resolution submitted by the Palestinians to the UN Security Council setting out terms for a final peace deal with Israel.
The Palestinians on Wednesday presented the resolution setting a 12-month deadline for wrapping up negotiations on a final settlement and the end of 2017 for completion of an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat and Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri held talks in Cairo on the resolution during which Shoukri offered Egypt’s support for the move, a Foreign Ministry statement said.
It said that during their talks, Shoukri stressed Egypt’s support for “the choice of the Palestinian people and its leadership.”
He offered Cairo’s “full backing for the legal rights of the Palestinians in establishing an independent state along the borders of June 4, 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital”, the statement said.
The draft resolution calls for a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as the shared capital.
Washington says it will not back the resolution, objecting in particular to the deadline for an Israeli withdrawal.
Cairo brokered a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas terrorist group to end the Gaza summer war that killed 2,140 Palestinians — half of them combatants, according to Israel — and 73 people on the Israeli side, most of them soldiers.
The Times of Israel Community.