Barack Obama President heads to the United Nations next week facing a potentially establishing diplomatic clash but already looking beyond a potential vote on Palestinian statehood and toward laying the groundwork for the resumption of stalled Middle East peace talks.
Barack Obama had hoped to focus his efforts at the meetings of the UN General Assembly on boosting the standing of Libya's former rebel leaders and touting the United Nations' role in dismantling Muammar Gaddafi's regime. But success in Libya seems likely to be overshadowed by a Palestinian push for full UN membership - an effort over which Barack Obama has little influence.
White House officials say it is still unclear what course the Palestinians will take in New York next week. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Friday that he will ask the UN Security Council to endorse his statehood bid, though he said he was open to other unspecified options. The US has pledged to veto the statehood bid, and the Barack Obama administration has senior diplomats in the region making a last-ditch effort to persuade the Palestinians to drop the measure.
But the White House insists its main focus is not on what happens at the UN, but on resuming direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. US officials contend that those negotiations provide the only credible pathway for the Palestinians to achieve statehood.
"Whatever happens at the United Nations, there's going to have to be a process to get these two parties back to the table when we get beyond next week," White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said Friday.
As part of the effort to revive the stalled negotiations, Barack Obama will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the UN meeting next week. But whether Obama can make any progress in convincing Netanyahu to return to talks is highly uncertain, and it is unclear what bargaining power the US has.
There are currently no plans for Barack Obama to meet with Abbas in New York, and the White House said the two leaders had not spoken recently.
Barack Obama is due to arrive in New York Monday evening, after giving a speech in the Washington area announcing his deficit cutting recommendations for a joint congressional committee.
The president's meetings at the UN kick into high gear on Tuesday with an emphasis on Libya, where opposition forces have unseated Gaddafi after four decades of rule.
Eager to burnish the credentials of Libya's new leadership, Obama will hold his first meeting with Mahmoud Jibril, prime minister of the Transitional National Council (TNC). He and other world leaders will also convene a high-level meeting on Libya where the TNC will outline its plans for a post-Gaddafi nation.
The White House sees next week's meetings as an opportunity to promote the UN's role in the months-long Libya effort as a model for future interventions. In March, the Security Council swiftly passed a resolution establishing a no-fly zone over Libya and authorising all necessary action needed to protect civilians, a measure the US credits with saving countless Libyan lives.
"The UN has a credible role to play in these issues, and the international community can prevent mass atrocities," Rhodes said. On Friday, the UN voted to give Libya's seat in the world body to the former rebels.
Other key meetings on Obama's schedule at the UN include one-on-one talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, their first meeting since Obama outlined plans to withdraw more than 20,000 US troops from Afghanistan by the end of next summer. And Obama will meet with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister of Turkey, whose increasingly strained relationship with Israel is a growing concern for the US Obama also will meet with leaders from Britain, France, Brazil, Japan and South Sudan, the world's newest nation.
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