Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pressed ahead with his campaign for statehood before the U.N. despite frantic U.S. efforts Tuesday to forge a diplomatic solution that would avoid a charged vote before the Security Council.
Abbas met in New York Tuesday with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country has Europe's largest Muslim population, as he sought support ahead of his General Assembly speech on Friday, when he has vowed to formally request U.N. membership.
Envoys of the Quartet of Mideast mediators — the U.S., the U.N., the European Union and Russia — planned to meet again Tuesday in an effort to avert a showdown over Palestinian statehood by crafting a way forward that would be enough to persuade the Palestinians to drop their bid and have enough caveats for Israel to get its support.
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 United Nations 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."