Creator
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he expected the Security Council to finish debating his nation’s application for UN membership in weeks.
President Mahmoud Abbas has told the United Nations chief he will seek full UN membership for a Palestinian state.
Palestinians will seek recognition as a United Nations member-state in September given the deadlock in US-brokered peacemaking with Israel.
Direct talks with Israel will not resume unless it halts the building of Jewish settlements on occupied land, the Palestinian leadership said.
US envoy George Mitchell stepped up the pace of efforts to save Middle East peace talks launched four weeks ago.
Mahmoud Darwish, whose poetry his fellow Palestinians embraced as the voice of their suffering, died on August 9 after heart surgery in Texas.
