Erekat asks Kerry to support Palestinian bid at UN

Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat appealed to US Secretary of State John Kerry to support Palestinian statehood efforts at the United Nations Security Council in a meeting Monday night.

Erekat, in Washington, also asked Kerry to recognize a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, with a capital in East Jerusalem, as a response to the recent Israeli announcement that it would build hundreds of housing units in East Jerusalem, the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency reported.

“Urgent steps from the international community to protect the two-state solution are needed,” Erekat said, according to a written statement cited by Ma’an. “We urge the US administration to support our bid to the UN Security Council in order to establish the borders of a Palestinian state.”

The US is thought to be likely to block a Palestinian proposal to the Security Council to set a date within two years for an Israeli pullout from the West Bank.

However the US, reportedly nervous about exercising its veto on the measure and inviting Arab ire, is engaged in efforts to convince Ramallah to keep from bringing the proposal to the table.

There was no immediate comment from the State Department on the meeting.

Earlier Monday, Erekat panned Israel’s decision to move ahead with plans for the construction of 500 apartments in the capital’s Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, which is situated over the Green Line in East Jerusalem.

“Israel’s latest settlement announcement is a slap in the face to US Secretary [of State John] Kerry, to the international community, to the Palestinian people, and to peace. The message is clear: The Netanyahu government chooses settlements over negotiations,” he said in a statement.

US officials said earlier Monday that no American framework for a peace plan would be presented during the meeting with Erekat. “There are no current plans to introduce a peace plan,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

Kerry’s bid to broker a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians ended in failure earlier this year, leaving bitter recriminations on both sides.

US officials have insisted progress was made during some nine months of intense shuttle diplomacy, but have resisted calls to formulate Washington’s own peace plan as a means of bringing the two sides back to the negotiating table.

Psaki on Monday blasted Israel for approving plans for East Jerusalem homes.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week said it would build more than 1,000 new homes in the part of city captured in the 1967 war.

Psaki insisted the United States would be “willing to be a capable partner” if there was a move to resume negotiations, but said there was no current “evidence of that.”

Regarding Israel, Psaki said: “If they were going to restart a peace negotiation, we would be seeing actions and we’d be seeing efforts on their part to do that.”

A senior Palestinian official said over the weekend Washington was seeking to dissuade the Palestinians from pursuing further claims to statehood at the United Nations.

To that end Kerry was planning to put forward some proposals on the way forward, the Palestinian official said, asking not to be named.

Psaki said Kerry spoke with Netanyahu over the weekend as well as with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh.

She added that Kerry and Erekat would look at ways to lower tensions in East Jerusalem after a series of clashes and attacks in recent weeks.

AFP and Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.