Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at a press conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Saturday. – APRAMALLAH – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday he will make a bid on Sept. 27 to obtain non-member status at the United Nations. “We will go to the UN General Assembly for consultations with our friends on the draft resolution calling for the upgrade of Palestine (to non-member status)" in the United Nations, Abbas said in a televised address. “We are going to the UN to say that we are a state which applies the fourth Geneva convention (on the protection of civilians in time of war). There are 133 countries that recognize us as a state with east Jerusalem as its capital and where we have embassies hoisting the Palestinian flag." Palestinians now have an observer entity status. Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Malki said last month that Abbas would make the upgrade request on Sept. 27 during the UN General Assembly. Palestinians are assured that the resolution would be passed with a wide majority. Such a resolution needs support of more than half of the 194 member states of the United Nations. In September 2011, Abbas made a high-profile effort to obtain full-member status at the UN, but the request was never put to a vote in the Security Council, where the United States had pledged to veto it. Several weeks ago, a senior official from the Palestine Liberation Organization said Washington was pressuring the Palestinian leadership to delay its upgrade plans until after the US elections in November. Abbas also said that government employees will not receive full salaries this month because donor countries have not delivered promised aid. The US and Arab countries have failed to come through this year with the aid money they have pledged, leaving the Palestinian Authority that governs much of the West Bank in a budgetary shortfall that has contributed to rising prices and delays in the payment of government salaries. The economic conditions have helped spark small but growing protests in the West Bank. Last week demonstrators halted traffic in key Palestinian cities. There are some 154,000 Palestinian civil servants, and their salaries help keep their extended families out of poverty. Abbas spoke to reporters Saturday in the West Bank city of Ramallah. — Agencies
