MOSCOW, January 16 (Sputnik) — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has called for an Arab committee to be set up to consider presenting a new draft resolution to the UN to do away with Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.
The statement came during an extraordinary meeting of Arab foreign ministers at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo on Thursday, China’s Xinhua news agency reports.
"The issue requires an international resolution or rather an American resolution, and then everything will go on the right track," Abbas said.
For his part, Arab League Secretary-General Nabil al-Araby urged Arabs to do more to gain necessary international support for a new UN Security Council resolution calling for Israel to withdraw from occupied territories by late 2017.
In a joint statement on Thursday, Arab foreign ministers said that a Kuwait-led committee will be formed to make consultations to this effect.
The new draft resolution will envisage Israel’s pullout of Palestinian territories beyond the pre-1976 borders and the creation of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital city.
A similar Palestinian-proposed resolution was rejected by the UN Security Council on December 30, 2014 because the document failed to obtain enough 'yes' votes.
President Abbas has inked a total of 20 international agreements, including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, right after the failed Security Council bid, a move that angered Washington and Tel Aviv.
Israel has repeatedly expanded settlement construction in East Jerusalem, something that the Palestinians insist is one of the main stumbling blocks in bilateral peace talks.
