Abbas heads to Brazil to found Palestinian embassy

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas was to travel to Brazil later yesterday to lay the symbolic foundation stone of a Palestinian embassy in Brasilia.
The ceremony is to take place on Friday and comes after Brazil announced it was recognising a Palestinian state based on the borders which existed before the 1967 Six-Day War when Israel seized the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.
On Saturday, Abbas is due to attend the inauguration of Brazil's new president, Dilma Rousseff, and expected to hold meetings with Latin American leaders in Brazil for the ceremony.
Brazil's outgoing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on December 3 that his country would recognise a Palestinian state following a personal request from Abbas.
"The demand presented by his excellency (Abbas) is just and consistent with the principles upheld by Brazil with regard to the Palestinian issue," Brazil's foreign ministry said.
The announcement angered both Israel and the United States, which have said a Palestinian state can only be achieved through a negotiated peace deal.
But a string of other Latin American countries, including Bolivia, Argentina and Ecuador, have followed suit, and Uruguay has said it will recognise a Palestinian state on the same basis in 2011.