RAMALLAH, September 5, 2011 (WAFA) – The PLO’s Executive Committee said on Monday that going to the United Nations in September to seek recognition will enhance the PLO’s ability to protect the legitimate Palestinian rights, according to a statement issued by the PLO’s secretary general.

The move will neither affect the role of the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinians nor the legal status and the rights of the Palestinian refugees, including their right to return and get a fair compensation based on UN General Assembly Resolution 194 of 1948.

The statement stressed that the PLO is the sole representative and protector of the Palestinian people, their right to return and to an independent state. It called on Palestinians everywhere, inside occupied Palestine and in the Diaspora, to support its leadership to achieve this goal.

The statement said that this move is a natural, historical and legal right of the Palestinian people, which goes hand in hand with their right to establish an independent state within the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

It said these rights were guaranteed by all the charters since 1919 and going to the UN does not contradict with the peace process based on the road map and international consensus of a two-state solution.

The statement confirmed that Palestine’s membership in the UN, making it equal to all people around the world, is a very important step in the struggle to end the Israeli occupation, which started in 1967, to achieve independence and it is the essence of the “September initiative,” which stressed the Palestinian people’s right to sovereignty, a state and recognition of the Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

M.G. /M.A.