(Reuters) - France
warned on Friday it would recognize a Palestinian state if a final
international effort to overcome the impasse between Israelis and
Palestinians failed, and proposed a two-year timeframe to end the
conflict through a U.N.-backed resolution. Lawmakers will hold a
symbolic parliamentary vote on Dec. 2 on whether the French government
should recognize Palestine as a state, a move that the Israeli Prime
Minister has called a "grave mistake". "If this final effort to reach a negotiated solution fails, then France
will have to do what it takes by recognizing without delay the
Palestinian state. We are ready," Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told
parliament. The
parliamentary vote has raised domestic political pressure for the
government to be more active on the issue. An IFOP poll showed 63
percent of French support a Palestinian state. Fabius told deputies that, were they to adopt the motion, it would not change Paris' immediate diplomatic stance. But
he said that, after similar moves in Sweden, Britain, Ireland and
Spain, Paris could not ignore the "never-ending" conflict that was
playing into extremists' hands. "There
needs to be support, some would say pressure, from the international
community to help the two sides make the final step to peace," Fabius
said. Palestinians seek
statehood in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and blockaded Gaza Strip
with East Jerusalem as their capital - lands captured by Israel in a
1967 war. The latest round
of efforts to forge a two-state solution collapsed in April.
Palestinians see little choice but to push unilaterally for statehood. Fabius said Paris was working to get a United Nations Security Council resolution adopted that would relaunch and conclude negotiations within two years. Diplomats
have said France, Britain and Germany are preparing a text that could
be accelerated if a separate resolution drafted by Palestinians, and
calling for an end to Israeli occupation by November 2016, is put
forward. "We must fix a calendar because without one how do you convince anybody that it won't just be another process?" Fabius said. He proposed that in parallel a conference be held with regional actors, European Union, Arab League and major powers. He
did not specify at what stage France could decide to back a Palestinian
state, but a diplomat said that it could happen anytime if Paris felt
negotiations were dead. France
does not classify Palestine as a state, but has supported Palestine's
membership of UNESCO and its non-member observer country status at the United Nations.
Eyeing deadline, France to back Palestinian state if peace talks fail

Reuters
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