Palestine fed up with waiting for EU common position - by Andrew Rettman

Palestine's ambassador to the EU has said her leader, Mahmoud Abbas will today (23 September) ask the UN Security Council for full UN membership despite last-minute British, French and US warnings not to go ahead.

Leila Shahid told EUobserver in an interview it remains unclear which EU countries will support the resolution or whether French President Nicolas Sarkozy's new three-step peace plan is an EU position or a purely French idea.

"The Europeans have been taken aback by our decision but we are going ahead because we see they cannot agree with each other ... We can't give up our rights while we wait for the Europeans to be united. And we can't give up our rights because [US] President Obama has a presidential campaign coming up and wants to win votes," she said.


For more: EUobserver.com / Headline News / Palestine fed up with waiting for EU common position