The UN Security Council should bring to closure the Palestinian request for UN membership, the Palestinian envoy to the world organization in New York said Thursday.
"We expect that after this long discussion by the council that it should bring the issue to a close," said Riyad Mansour. "Our desire is to be admitted into the UN, but we are not members of the council", DPA reported.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas applied for UN membership on September 23 when he attended the UN General Assembly in New York. The application was transferred to the 15-nation council on the same day and that body held several closed-door meetings. But there was no indication that the request would be approved anytime soon.
The council planned a new round of discussions on the application later Thursday.
The council president for November, Portugal's UN Ambassador Jose Cabral, told reporters when asked about the discussion, "Let's see what will happen."
Mansour acknowledged that the United States had threatened to veto the request if it were to be put to a vote in the council.
The quartet on the Middle East peace process, composed of the UN, the European Union, the United States and Russia, has endorsed a Palestinian state, but requires that it must be the result of negotiations with Israel.
But the chance for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, already deadlocked, to resume is remote after the Palestinian Authority is admitted this week into the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in Paris.