Israel to stop Palestinian UN bid: Barak

Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak (file photo)

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/190612.html

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak says Tel Aviv must place all its focus on rallying the support of the European countries against the Palestinian bid to seek recognition at the United Nations in September.

Barak said preventing the recognition of a Palestinian state has been the Israeli cabinet's main concern while speaking to Israel's Army Radio on Sunday, Ma'an News Agency reported.

His remarks came a day after Turkey hosted a conference aimed at rallying international support for the recognition of an independent Palestinians statehood at the forthcoming UN meeting.

"We are going to the United Nations because we are forced to, it is not a unilateral action," Acting Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas at the conference. "What is unilateral is Israeli settlement."

He further urged the more than 90 Palestinian Authority ambassadors attending the conference to "mobilize for the September UN bid."

More than 100 countries have so far officially recognized Palestine as a state based on the 1967 borders, the boundaries that existed before Israel captured and annexed East al-Quds (Jerusalem), the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.