Russia offers support to Palestinian statehood

Russia offers support to Palestinian statehood

October 23, 2014 Oleg Yegorov

National Jordanian and Israeli flags are seen on the Naharayim bridge on the border between Israel and Jordan north-eastern Israel October 22, 2014. Source: Reuters

Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations has announced that Russia will back a resolution calling for a Palestinian state, if one is presented. "Russia will support the resolution establishing the terms for Israeli withdrawal and the creation of the Palestinian state if it is presented to the UN Security Council," Churkin said. "If the resolution is presented, we will vote for it."

His comments come after Palestine’s delegation to the UN decided not to present a resolution on statehood to the UN Security Council on Oct. 21, as was expected. The expected resolution was believed to lay out concrete terms for the creation of a Palestinian state and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, by 2016.

Churkin's promise to support Palestine did not come as a surprise. Russia has long supported the idea of creating an independent Palestinian state, and Russian diplomats have often expressed this position publicly. At a meeting in Cairo this month on rebuilding in the Gaza Strip, Mikhail Bogdanov, the Russian President’s Special Representative for the Middle East, said: "We believe that the Palestinian cause is just, and that the Palestinian people have the right to self-determination, to create their own state.”

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