Arabs to push for Palestinian statehood bid

Earlier on Monday, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who is in Cairo for talks with officials at an Arab foreign ministers' meeting on the Palestinian U.N. bid, said the European Union has still not decided on a united position yet.

The Palestinians decided to seek United Nations recognition of statehood after years of negotiations with Israel failed to deliver the independent state they want to establish in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem -- areas occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East War.

The Palestinians currently hold U.N. "observer" status. Full member status would require approval in the Security Council, where Israel's ally the United States had said it would veto any such resolution.

"The Arabs had agreed to apply to the United Nations for a full-fledged Palestinian state with its capital East Jerusalem," Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, chairman of the follow-up committee on the Palestinian U.N. bid, said at the start of the meeting.

"At this meeting, we will look into the steps that has been taken to go to the United Nations," he said before a closed session began.

Diplomats have said it is not clear what the Palestinians will do when the U.N. General Assembly opens on September 19. They could seek lower status as a "non-member state," which would require a simple majority of the 193-nation Assembly.