UN committee to meet on Palestinian bid
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Xinhua, October 1, 2011
The UN Security Council's admission committee will meet next week at the expert level on whether or not to approve Palestine's bid for member statehood, council president for September Nawaf Salam told reporters in New York Friday.
Salam, who is also the permanent representative of Lebanon to the UN, explained the situation to reporters after the committee met behind closed doors.
"It decided to meet next week at the expert level and the chairman of the committee will report in two weeks to the council on the work of the committee," Salam said. "So the follow-up will be the Nigerian presidency."
Nigeria will hold the seat as president of the 15-member global peace and security body for October as its consideration of the Palestinian bid continues. The admissions committee consists of all 15-members of the council.
Addressing reporters immediately after Salam, Riyad Mansour, permanent observer of Palestine to the UN, said Palestine hopes that the next stage of the review process is completed efficiently.
"I understand that the legal argument of the qualification of Palestine and its application has been established and I think on such basis the experts will discuss the details of our application, " he said. "We hope that the experts will deal with this part of the exercise in a short period of time, so that the next president of the Security Council, Nigeria next month, will be able to report to the Security Council about the work of the committee of experts and we hope that this will happen as soon as possible."
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas submitted on Sept. 23 to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon an application for Palestine to be a UN member. The bid must be approved by the Security Council in order to advance to final approval in the UN General Assembly. However, the U.S., a permanent member of the council with the veto power, has indicated that it will veto Palestine's request.
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