He spoke as Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Malki said he was confident the UN Security Council would vote to recognize Palestinian statehood and urged the US to reconsider its veto threat as efforts to resolve the impasse appeared deadlocked.
As diplomats scrambled to contain a political crisis looming over this year’s meeting of the UN General Assembly, the Palestinian foreign minister said he believed at least nine of the 15 members of the Security Council would endorse the Palestinian move.
“We’re working toward it and I think we’ll manage it,” Al-Malki said after meeting his Venezuelan counterpart.
“We hope the US will revise its position and be on the side of the majority of nations or countries who want to support the Palestinian right to have self determination and independence,” Al-Malki said.
Speaking at a “Friends of Libya” conference at the UN General Assembly, Sarkozy also said that with Arab states finally moving toward freedom, the world had to be “careful that 60-year-old conflicts did not poison the construction of democracy.”
Sarkozy met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday to hear his strategy after the Palestinian Authority chief announced his intention to apply for full statehood at the UN Security Council on Friday.
Sarkozy declined to comment after the meeting.
“Not only does the Arab street gives us an obligation to act, but would condemn all forms of immobility,” Sarkozy said in his speech.
The president plans to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday.
Officials said Netanyahu has no plans to meet Abbas.
On Monday night, Netanyahu had called on the Palestinian leader to meet him in New York to restart peace talks.
Netanyahu said the path to peace lies through negotiations, not “unilateral” acts at the UN.
He also warned the international community against prematurely establishing a Palestinian state when many issues in the conflict remain unresolved.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, in New York Tuesday for high-level meetings, told Europe-1 radio in Paris that his country is still working to get Mideast peace talks restarted before the UN faces a decision over whether to recognize a Palestinian state.
“The status quo is untenable,” Juppe said.
“The only way to settle the Israeli-Palestinian problem is direct negotiations.”
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, meanwhile, told Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a Sept. 17 letter circulated Tuesday that his country backs the push for Palestinian statehood, and that recognizing it would be “an act of historic justice.”
Israeli officials say that by going to the UN, the Palestinians are violating a pledge to resolve disagreements through negotiations.
