Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas refused Wednesday to back down from a bid to have the United Nations recognize Palestinian statehood, telling US officials the move did not contradict the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Abbas told visiting US Middle East peace envoy David Hale and US presidential adviser Dennis Ross that the Palestinian approach to the UN would help “overcome the impasse (in the peace process) caused as a result of Israeli intransigence.”

Meanwhile, Wendy Sherman, nominated to become the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, reiterated in her Senate nomination hearing on Wednesday the US Administration position in stronger terms than ever before.

“The President has been very clear that a UN resolution to recognize Palestine will not get us to the two-state solution that both parties seek and that most of the world seeks”, Sherman said in an exchange with the US Senator Mike Lee (R-UT). “He has been unrelenting in saying that such a resolution is not in our interest or in the interest of the world or the two parties.” According to Sherman, “the administration has been very clear as well that if any such resolution were put in front of the Security Council, that we would veto it”.

For more, go to Haaretz.com

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