Ramallah // Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas will use this month’s United Nations summit of world leaders as a platform to call for a last-ditch Middle East peace effort by the Obama administration, a senior aide said.
Mr Abbas will urge President Barack Obama to make the resolution of the century-old conflict, and recognition of a Palestinian state, a priority in his final year-and-a-half in office, long-time Palestinian negotiator Mohammad Shtayyeh said.
The US secretary of state John Kerry, who led the last round of peace talks with Israel that crumbled last year, called Mr Abbas on Thursday and the two agreed to meet during the UN General Assembly this month, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa said.
Mr Shtayyeh said US diplomats would need the same determination that made July’s accord on Iran’s nuclear programme possible.
“They fought for the agreement and formed an international coalition,” he said in an interview at his office in Ramallah. “Now we need this American administration to create a coalition for peace between Palestine and Israel.”
Before Mr Abbas heads to New York, he will attend a meeting in the West Bank that will be watched for clues as to who may eventually succeed the 80-year-old Palestinian leader. Hundreds of officials from across the political spectrum are scheduled to gather on September 14 for the first meeting since 1996 of the Palestinian National Council.
While Mr Abbas has said he will not run again as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, he remains president of the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank. He has held the post since Yasser Arafat died in 2004.
A poll of Palestinians published by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Centre last week showed no potential successor with more than 11 per cent support, while 34 percent of respondents were undecided.
Mr Shtayyeh, 57, who sits on the central committee of the PLO’s ruling Fatah party, declined to elaborate when asked about Mr Abbas’s future plans.
He was more forthcoming about expectations from the US, saying Palestinians hoped that Mr Obama would pressure Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu into stopping settlement construction. While Israel and the US are longtime allies, their current governments have repeatedly clashed.
Israel must accept a state of Palestine within the borders of 1967, before it captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip, east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, Mr Shtayyeh said.
To achieve that goal, he said, Mr Obama will need to “throw a big rock in the water, so that Netanyahu really feels the splash on his face”.
* Bloomberg