The Palestinian Authority is using a year-old qualified statement by President Obama in a campaign for support for its statehood recognition bid.

“When we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that can lead to a new member of the United Nations, an independent, sovereign state of Palestine living in peace with Israel,” Obama says in a 2010 speech to the United Nations quoted in an ad playing on Palestinian radio stations, according to Reuters.

That’s followed by P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas saying: “If he said it, he must have meant it.”

In fact, the United States strongly opposes this month’s bid for U.N. recognition, in part because talks seeking the “agreement” Obama referred to collapsed soon after he delivered his speech.

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