PLO wants UNSC to meet on settlements

Palestinian Authority seeks emergency Security Council session on Israel's settlement policy; resolution demanding construction freeze

Elior Levy, AFP|Published: 06.30.12 , 19:09

The Palestine Liberation Organization called on Saturday for an emergency UN Security Council meeting on Israel's policy of building Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

The call followed reports that a planned meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz has been called off.

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"The PLO executive committee has decided to call for the Security Council to convene an urgent meeting to discuss settlements," the committee said after a meeting in Ramallah.

"We have decided to pursue contacts with all international blocs of the Security Council to adopt a resolution against settlements," it said after the meeting, in which Abbas took part.

A planned Abbas-Mofaz encounter on Sunday has been "postponed to a later date," a senior Palestinian official in Ramallah said.

The Abbas-Mofaz talks were to have been the highest-level meeting between Israeli and Palestinian officials since May 12, when Israeli negotiator Yitzhak Molcho met Abbas to deliver a letter from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Also on Saturday, PLO Secretary General Yasser Abed Rabbo issued an urgent plea to the Arab world to help the Palestinian Authority fight its financial troubles.

He said that the PA is in dire straits and that it will be struggling to pay its employees' wages ahead of Ramadan.