Communicated by the Israel Government Press Office Jerusalem, 18 June 1998 Palestinian attempt to upgrade UN Status violates Oslo 2 Accord THE AGREEMENT Under the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is obligated to negotiate with Israel the permanent status of Judea, Samaria and Gaza and to refrain from unilateral measures that would alter the status of these areas. The September 28, 1995 Interim Agreement ("Oslo 2") states that "Neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations" (Article I(7)). The intention of this article is to ensure that neither side takes unilateralmeasures to alter the legal status of the areas (such as annexation or declaration of statehood). The accord also states that the final status talks "shall cover remaining issues, including: Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, security arrangements, borders, relations and cooperation with other neighbors, and other issues of common interest" (Article I(5)). Thus, the PA is obligated to negotiate these issues with Israel.   THE VIOLATION Unilateral Palestinian attempts to upgrade the observer status of the PLO's UN delegation to that of a near-state are a clear violation of the Oslo 2 Accords. At a press conference on June 18, 1998, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Palestinian efforts at the United Nations are "a violation of the basic agreement that we have with the Palestinians. There is an agreement that final status issues are not going to be determined unilaterally but will be determined innegotiations... We are now in the sensitive stages of negotiating an agreement which I hope will come to pass... I think this would be a complete subversion of any possibility of achieving an agreement. This will be a tremendous blow to peace... This is likely to cause the collapse of the process."