Paris/London: France on Tuesday tried to overcome resistance and rally international support for a draft UN plan setting a two-year deadline for peace talks on Palestinian statehood.
Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius met in Paris with the secretary-general of the Arab League, Egyptian and Palestinian ministers, and former Israeli president Shimon Peres.
US Secretary of State John Kerry met chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat in London hoping to avert a diplomatic crisis over a UN bid to force the Israelis to withdraw from Palestinian land.
Kerry sought to persuade the Palestinians not to rush ahead with a draft UN resolution seeking to set a two-year timetable for an end to the Israeli occupation.
He called for caution in Middle East talks, saying there was a need to “carefully calibrate” any steps taken.
“Many of us share a deep sense of urgency (but)... we have to carefully calibrate any steps that are taken for this difficult moment in the region,”
He added that the US had not made any determinations on the UN resolution.
Kerry had spent the past two days in Europe meeting his counterparts as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to gauge support for the Palestinian effort at the UN Security Council.
France’s Fabius is seeking support for a draft UN resolution that the French hope would be a catalyst for peace talks. The French, seeking a higher-profile role in Middle East diplomacy, see their draft as more palatable than a Jordanian-backed resolution also under discussion.
Jordan is expected to submit an Arab-backed draft resolution to the UN Security Council as early as Wednesday, seeking a two-year timetable for Israel to withdraw its forces from the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem.
Washington was all but certain to veto any resolution setting a deadline for an Israeli withdrawal, and Kerry has been meeting European allies and senior Israeli and Palestinian officials this week in a bid to head off a diplomatic crisis.
A UN resolution is the “only option left to the Palestinian leadership,” said Abdul Majid Swailem, a Palestinian political analyst.
George Jiacaman of Birzeit University in the West Bank said going to the UN was “an alternative to measures the Palestinian street is demanding, such as halting security coordination with Israel”.
Netanyahu warned late on Monday after meeting Kerry for almost three hours in Rome that European backing for the Palestinians could harm his country.
“Attempts of the Palestinians and of several European countries to force conditions on Israel will only lead to a deterioration in the regional situation and will endanger Israel,” he said in a statement.
“Therefore, we will strongly oppose this.”
US officials told reporters accompanying Kerry that Washington has not yet decided whether to veto or back the French-led UN initiative.
“There are certain things we would never support,” said a State Department official, without elaborating.
“Even if the Palestinians have a text in their hand, the Americans have already said that they will veto it,” Fabius said.
There is a growing impatience in Europe over the failure to make progress in peace talks, amid fears the Middle East risks spiralling into even greater chaos.
Several European parliaments have called on their governments to move ahead with the recognition of a Palestinian state.
The US administration opposes moves to bind negotiators’ hands through a UN resolution — particularly any attempt to set a deadline for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the West Bank.
