PA: Palestinians Are Ready For Statehood By September

Tuesday April 12, 2011 01:43 by George Rishmawi - IMEMC & Agencies

Palestinian Prime Minister of the care-taker government said Monday that Palestinians are now ready for statehood in September 2011.

"I believe that our governing institutions have now reached a high state of readiness to assume all the responsibilities that will come with full sovereignty on the entire Palestinian occupied territory," Fayyad Said in the report.

Minister of Planning Dr. Ali Jarbawi announced the government's "national readiness to establish an independent Palestinian state during September."

Both, Jarbawi and Fayyad stressed the need to end the Israeli military occupation in Palestine. The Palestinian Authority is expected to demand a UN resolution to recognize a Palestinian State within the pre-1967 borders, despite Israeli warnings against such step.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said such a step will push the peace process backwards.

According to the Oslo accords, an Independent Palestinian state should have been declared by late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in May 2000. However, Israel and the US warned against such step.

The area designated for a Palestinian state, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip has lost almost half of its area to Israeli settlements, military bases and by-pass roads that connects settlements in the West Bank to each other, by passing Palestinian inhabited areas.

palestine | peace process | news report george at imemc dot org