Acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas says Palestinians will ask for membership and recognition of their state at a UN General Assembly meeting in September.

“I say that if negotiations have failed we will go to the United Nations for membership,” Abbas was quoted by AFP as saying on Sunday.

Speaking at a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization and his Fatah party, Abbas said it was the only option since “there have been no new incentives to return to negotiations.”

Due to Israel’s renewed settlement building activities, the Palestinian Authority (PA) broke off direct talks with Tel Aviv in September. The PA said Israel had to freeze the construction and expansion of Jewish settler units or the talks could not continue.

Palestinian officials have been campaigning to get UN recognition for an independent state that spans the territories of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East al-Quds (Jerusalem) captured by Israel in 1967.

The United States, Israel and Germany say they oppose the plan and have urged Palestinians not to take unilateral steps. The opponents say any progress toward a Palestinian state must be made through a negotiated agreement.

Abbas travelled to Turkey last week in a bid to rally support for a possible yes-vote at the UN.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after a meeting with Abbas in the Turkish capital Ankara on Friday, said that the only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian issue is establishment of a Palestinian state with East al-Quds (Jerusalem) as its capital.

“Turkey is determined to support Palestine [in its bid] to become a member of the United Nations,” Erdogan said.

(Press TV)