Palestinian membership bid report sent to UNSC

United Nations: The UN Security Council's admissions committee on Friday forwarded to the 15-nation body its report on the Palestinian request for full UN membership, the council president told.

"We held a meeting of the committee on admissions and the committee approved the report and forwarded it to the Security Council the report on the admission of Palestine to the United Nations," said Portugal's UN Ambassador Jone Filipe Moraes Cabral, who holds the rotating Security Council presidency for November, Xinhua reported.

"The Council will receive the report and will discuss any future initiatives," he said.

"We have already a very busy workload," he said. "We will be consulting with members of the Council and then deciding on the day we will meet in order to discuss this issue."

The admissions committee, which groups all 15 Security Council members, began to review the Palestinian UN bid shortly after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas formally presented the application for full UN membership to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on September 23.

However, the Council president did not reveal any details of the report, which is expected to contain the viewpoints of the admissions committee on whether to accept or reject the Palestinian bid.

A draft report of the committee dwelt on the deadlock among Council members, diplomatic sources said here.

The Council president did not say when the Security Council will vote on the report.

Admission to the United Nations as a full member state requires a recommendation from the Security Council, with a majority of nine votes in favor and no veto from the five permanent members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the US.

A submission would then go to the 193-member UN General Assembly, where approval would require a two-thirds vote in favour.

The US, a veto-wielding Council member and a close ally of Israel, threatens to veto the Palestinian bid on the ground that the Palestinian statehood should emerge from negotiations with Israel, not from acts by third parties or international groups.

On Oct 31, Palestine became the 195th full member of UNESCO. The vote 107 to 14, with 5 abstentions, defied a mandated cutoff of American funds under US federal legislation from the 1990s.