RAMALLAH, August 7, 2018 (WAFA) - President Mahmoud Abbas will deliver an important political speech to the United Nations General Assembly in September, member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Ahmed Majdalani, said on Tuesday.

He said that the importance of the speech is that it will come after a meeting for the PLO’s Central Council scheduled for mid-August and which is expected to take decisive decisions on many important issues.

Speaking to Voice of Palestine radio, Majdalani said that the speech will stress a united Palestinian position on important issues such as future relationship with Israel on the grounds that the transitional phase of the Palestinian Authority is over and that there is a shift in its function to lead the Palestinian people to freedom, independence and statehood.

He said a committee formed to determine the future relationship with Israel is expected to present its report to the Central Council, which will call for a gradual pullout from all agreements signed with Israel since 1993, including civil affairs and security arrangements and a third track that has to do with economics, including commercial and financial ties.

He said measures would be launched to break away from the agreements that have been binding to the Palestinian people but which were annulled unilaterally by the Israeli governments, adding that the working paper to be submitted to the Central Council will include all the measures and alternatives that should be taken in addition to the countermeasures that could be expected from Israel.

He stated that a report will also be presented to the Central Council on the results of the dialogue with Hamas with a view to determining the subsequent steps to hand over to the national conciliation government all responsibilities in the Gaza Strip.

Majdalani said the United States wants to turn the Gaza Strip from a political issue into a humanitarian one through calm and services projects as a prelude to break the Gaza Strip from the West Bank in order to create a separate political entity in Gaza and to destroy the national project of creating independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on the 1967 lines with East Jerusalem as its capital.

M.K.