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WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama will travel to the United Nations General Assembly in New York later this month for an annual meeting likely to be overshadowed by the Palestinian drive for statehood.
Obama will be in New York between September 19 and 21, the White House said in a statement, adding that the president would also make a speech at the Clinton Global Initiative meetings led by former president Bill Clinton.
Palestinians, frustrated by the failure of the frozen US-sponsored peace process with Israel to deliver statehood, plan to propose to UN chief Ban Ki-moon on September 20 that they be granted full UN recognition.
The United States argues that the Palestinians will only achieve meaningful statehood through a revival of direct peace talks with Israel and has warned it will veto the bid in the Security Council.
Washington had hoped to head off a vote and the prospect it would be forced to use its veto to shield Israel, in a move which could anger Arab publics at a time of intense political change sweeping the Middle East.
Obama's push for an elusive peace deal through direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians has foundered on Israel's refusal to stop expanding Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, occupied since 1967.
The Palestinian petition at the UN could be somewhat of a personal embarrassment for the president, as at last year's general assembly he issued a stirring call for a Palestinian state.
Lashing out at “cynics” and “pessimists,” Obama wagered substantial diplomatic capital and said the world should back his plan to forge a Palestinian state and a secure Israel by the UN General Assembly in 2011.
He asked his audience to consider the alternative, sketching a scenario where Palestinians would never get a state and Israel would never know true security.
