Mohammad Shtayyeh
Mohammad ShtayyehReuters

The Palestinian Authority (PA) on Tuesday urged the United Nations to support the international coalition led by the Quartet that aims at finding a just and lasting solution to the Palestinian question, the Xinhua news agency reported.

During a meeting in Ramallah, PA cabinet leader Mohammed Shtayyeh urged United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, to support the PA call for a new international coalition and a peace conference that includes all parties, based on international laws, legitimacy and UN resolutions.

At the meeting, the two sides also discussed the latest political development and the means to enhance cooperation to counter the COVID-19 pandemic in the PA.

Shtayyeh reiterated the PA’s rejection of Israel’s plan to apply sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria and US President Donald Trump's Middle East peace plan, known as "Deal of the Century."

Instead, he called on Mladenov to endorse the peace proposal of PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas, which includes an international multilateral umbrella led by the international Quartet to host a peace conference to jumpstart the frozen negotiations.

The Quartet is made up of the US, the UN, the EU. and Russia. It has been on the sidelines in recent years, allowing the US to spearhead efforts to broker an Israel-PA deal.

Those efforts failed in 2014 when the PA unilaterally applied to join international organizations in breach of the conditions of the talks.

More recently, the PA has expressed outrage over the coalition agreement between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz, which stipulates that the government could have applied sovereignty over Judea and Samaria on July 1.

In response to the agreement, Abbas ordered the cancellation of agreements and understandings with Israel and the US, including the security understandings.