France has said it is working with partners on a “final” diplomatic push to overcome the impasse between Israelis and Palestinians, including by setting a time frame to end the conflict through a UN-backed resolution.
“If this final effort to reach a negotiated solution fails, then France will have to do what it takes by recognising without delay the Palestinian state,” foreign minister Laurent Fabius told parliament.
Deputies are set to hold a symbolic parliamentary vote on December 2nd on whether the French government should recognise Palestine as a state, a move the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has called a “grave mistake”.
The vote has raised domestic pressure for the government to be more active on the issue.
Mr Fabius told deputies that, were they to adopt the motion, it would not change Paris’s immediate diplomatic stance.
But Mr Fabius said France was working at the United Nations to get a resolution adopted that would set a two-year time frame to reach a negotiated solution. He also proposed an international conference in parallel to pressurise the two sides.
Reuters