Egypt Says It Backs Palestinian U.N. Resolution

Egypt said on Saturday it supports a draft resolution submitted by the Palestinians to the U.N. Security Council setting out terms for a final peace deal with Israel.

The Palestinians on Wednesday presented the resolution setting a 12-month deadline for wrapping up negotiations on a final settlement and the end of 2017 for completion of an Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territories.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat and Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri held talks in Cairo on the resolution during which Shoukri offered Egypt’s support for the move, a foreign ministry statement said.

It said that during their talks, Shoukri stressed Egypt’s support for “the choice of the Palestinian people and its leadership.”

He offered Cairo’s “full backing for the legal rights of the Palestinians in establishing an independent state along the borders of June 4, 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital,” the statement said.

The draft resolution calls for a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as the shared capital.

Washington says it will not back the resolution, objecting in particular to the deadline for an Israeli withdrawal.

Cairo brokered a cease-fire between Israel and Palestinian Hamas militant movement to end the Gaza summer war that killed 2,140 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and 73 people on the Israeli side, most of them soldiers.

Source: AFP