UNITED NATIONS, December 3 (Itar-Tass) —— The UN Security Council is ready to vote on the admission of Palestine to the UN, but this requires two things - a specific signal from the Palestinians on which day they would wish the vote to take place, and a draft resolution itself, which would contain a recommendation to the General Assembly to admit Palestine to the UN, Russia’s UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin told a news conference at the UN headquarters.
He suggested that such a project was likely to come from Lebanon, which is the unofficial representative of the Arab world in the UN Security Council. "So far neither has happened,” the diplomat said. “When we have both, I can assure you that the Security Council can quickly vote on the matter."
The Russian ambassador told Itar-Tass in an interview that Moscow "has always proceeded from the fact that it is up to the Palestinian side to make this decision."
"If the Palestinian side says that it wants the issue to be put to the vote in the UN Security Council, the Palestinians will deserve to see the UN Security Council meet their request and hold the voting,” Churkin said. “It will be proper and fair, regardless of the outcome of the vote."
For the resolution to be adopted it is to be voted for by nine of the fifteen SC members, provided that none of the five permanent members (the United Kingdom, China, Russia, the USA and France) does not use the veto. Meanwhile, the U.S. long before September 23, when the head of the PNA, Mahmoud Abbas, submitted a formal application for UN membership, stressed that it would not let such a resolution through the Security Council, and, if necessary, would impose a veto on such a draft. According to diplomatic sources, in the case of voting the U.S. may not have to resort to a veto, because such a resolution can only be supported by eight members of the Security Council.