(VOVworld) - Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas told the UN General Assembly on Thursday that Israel's ongoing settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank was destroying any hope of a two-state solution along the lines of the original 1967 borders.
He went on to urge countries to recognize Palestine as a state and said that he would soon present the UN Security Council with a resolution against Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which he hopes every country in the 15-member Security Council would support.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the stage to claim that the conflict has never been about the settlements or about establishing a Palestinian state. The issue of settlements in the West Bank was nonetheless "real," he conceded, saying that it "can and must be resolved in final negotiations, final-status negotiations."