The West Bank Palestinian leadership has formally decided to press ahead with efforts in September to win UN recognition of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.
The leadership, made up of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's decision-making body and officials of the Palestinian authority, the self-rule government in the West Bank, said in a statement that the goal was to bring a state of Palestine into the family of nations of the world.
It approved the approach in principle, according to the statement, without adding operative steps about how to follow on from recognition.
The idea of asking the UN to recognise a Palestinian state inside the cease-fire lines that held until the 1967 Mideast war is a reflection of Palestinian frustration with stalled peace talks with Israel.
In recent weeks, however, Palestinian leaders have been giving signs of backing away from the initiative, which Israel vehemently opposes, as both the initiative and a drive to agree a unity government with Hamas in Gaza have foundered.
Some Palestinians believe that contrary to the notion that UN recognition would stymie peace talks, such world status would force Israel to make concessions when negotiations resume.
Recognition of a Palestinian state by the UN general assembly would carry considerable diplomatic weight but would not carry legal clout.
Only the UN security council can add a nation to the world body, and the US government has repeatedly expressed its opposition to the move, while stopping short of saying it would veto such a resolution.
Israel has denounced the Palestinian UN initiative, claiming it would scupper efforts to reach a negotiated solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
US president Barack Obama has offered a formula under which a Palestinian state would be set up with borders based on the pre-1967 war cease-fire lines that delineate the West Bank, with agreed upon swaps of territory between the two sides.
The current Israeli leadership, under prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has reacted coolly to Mr Obama's proposal. Mr Netanyahu has rejected an Israeli withdrawal from all of the occupied West Bank and wants to retain Israeli control of east Jerusalem, claimed by the Palestinians as their capital.
Palestinians have been insisting that peace negotiations can be resumed only if Israel stops all construction in its West Bank settlements and Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, also considered settlements by the Palestinians and much of the world.
That would go well beyond a 10-month moratorium on new housing starts in the West Bank that Mr Netanyahu imposed as an incentive to restart the talks. The negotiations resumed nine months later, last September, but were halted when the moratorium ended and was not renewed.
AP