Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas emphasized on Thursday that a two-state solution is essential for peace in the Middle East. He stated, “Those who think that peace can prevail in the Middle East without the Palestinian people enjoying their full, legitimate national rights would be mistaken,” while addressing the UN General Assembly.
The veteran 87-year-old leader made a new appeal to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to call an international conference on creating a Palestinian state.
The United States, historically the peace broker between the two sides, has all but given up on serious negotiations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government, which has pushed forward controversial settlements in the occupied West Bank.
A UN conference “may be the last opportunity to salvage the two-state solution and to prevent the situation from deteriorating more seriously and threatening the security and stability of our region and the entire world,” Abbas said.