UNSC to have open meeting on Palestinian statehood bid

The UN Security Council will have an open meeting on the Palestinian statehood bid on Wednesday, Lebanese UN Ambassador Nawaf Salam, who holds the rotating Council presidency for September, announced here Monday.

The 15-nation Security Council is slated to have a formal meeting, also known as an open meeting, at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1530GMT) on Wednesday, he said.

"The Council will meet on Wednesday at 9:30 to consider referring the matter to the Committee on Admissions," according to its provisional rules of procedure, said the president.

Salam made the statement to reporters here at the end of the Council's closed-door meeting on the Palestinian request for the full UN membership, the first Council meeting after the Palestinian application letter was transmitted to the Council president on Friday by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon just within one or two hours after he received it from Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas.

Despite mounting pressures, including the repeated U.S. veto threats, Abbas on Friday formally presented the application letter to the UN secretary-general in a bid to seek the UN recognition of Palestine as a full member state.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, seen as a big test for the international peace efforts, overwhelmed other matters here at the UN Headquarters in New York as 193 member states gathered here for the annual high-level debate of the UN General Assembly.

Earlier on Friday, Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian permanent observer to the United Nations, told reporters that he hopes the Security Council would "synchronize with history" and grant its bid to become the 194th member of the United Nations.

The Security Council, at its Wednesday meeting, is expected to send the Palestinian application to the technical or the expert committee, which is composed of all 15 members of the Security Council, and the committee would give its recommendation to the Council after it studies the application.

The United States, a permanent Council member and a close ally of Israel, vows to veto any Security Council move to recognize Palestine as a UN member state on the ground that the Palestinian State should be established through direct talks between the Israelis and Palestinians.

Direct talks between Israel and Palestine stalled in October 2010, when Israel declined to renew a moratorium on its settlement building.