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Palestine said no to Barack Obama, who wanted to dissuade the Palestinians from asking the United Nations Security Council for statehood in the teeth of a US threat of veto.

The US President told the UN on Wednesday in the general debate of the 66th General Assembly session that there was no substitute for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations or any shortcut to peace.

But a senior Palestinian official, Nabil Shaath, said: "We will cordially and respectfully tell him 'no.'"

The Palestinians, however, would give the Security Council "some time" to mull the statehood claim before they took it to the UN General Assembly, he said at a news conference.

The Palestinian delegation, currently an observer at the UN, is seeking to obtain statehood, which would have to be approved by the 15-nation council. However, in spite of the statements of some council members that they would approve the bid, permanent council member, the United States, a close Israeli ally, has indicated that it will use its veto power to stop the measure in its tracks.

If the request for full statehood fails, Palestinians have the option of gaining the lesser but still upgraded status of non-member observer state by going through the General Assembly, where veto power is not a factor.

On Friday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will present an application to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for Palestine to join the United Nations immediately after he addresses the general debate on Friday.

Flag-waving Palestinians filled the squares of West Bank cities to rally behind the initiative at the UN.

A year after telling the General Assembly he hoped to see a Palestinian state born by now, the US president said creating such a state alongside Israel remained his goal.

"But the question isn't the goal we seek - the question is how to reach it," he said.

"Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the UN - if it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now," Obama said.

However, it is the failure of 20 years of US-brokered negotiations that has driven Abbas to take his quest for a state to the UN - a ploy that could embarrass the US by forcing it to protect its Israeli ally against the tide of world opinion.

（中國日報網英語點津 Helen 編輯）

About the broadcaster:

Lee Hannon is Chief Editor at China Daily with 15-years experience in print and broadcast journalism. Born in England, Lee has traveled extensively around the world as a journalist including four years as a senior editor in Los Angeles. He now lives in Beijing and is happy to move to China and join the China Daily team.