Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will address the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 20, during the council's monthly meeting on the Middle East.
The move comes amid tensions over U.S. President Donald Trump's Dec. 6 announcement recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital, a decision that broke with decades of U.S. policy.
Since Trump's announcement, Abbas has been saying he will ask the Security Council to grant full U.N. membership to the Palestinians and will accept only an internationally backed panel to broker any peace talks with Israel.
"This will be a good thing for members of the Security Council to listen to the president himself. No council members rejected this proposal," said Kuwait's U.N. Ambassador Mansour Ayyad Al-Otaibi, the council's president during February.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told the Security Council last week that Abbas lacks "the courage and the will to seek peace."
Trump threatened to withhold aid to the Palestinians if they do not pursue peace with Israel. But Abbas said that by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital, the United States has taken itself "off the table" as a peace mediator.
Israel's U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon accused Abbas of "seeking to put an end to any possibility of negotiations with Israel" with his address to the 15-member Security Council.
"Abbas is completely misreading today's reality and harming the prospects for a better future for his people," Danon said in a statement on Thursday.
Al-Otaibi said Israel had not yet asked to send a high-level representative to the council meeting.
In 2012, the U.N. General Assembly granted de facto recognition of a sovereign Palestinian state when it upgraded its status from an "entity" to a "non-member state."
However, the U.N. Security Council has to recommend a state for full membership to the General Assembly, which would need to approve it with a two-thirds majority. The United States would likely veto a Palestinian bid in the Security Council.
In December, the 193-member General Assembly adopted a non-binding resolution calling for the United States to drop its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
Trump had threatened to cut off financial aid to countries that voted in favor of the U.N. resolution. A total of 128 countries backed the resolution, nine voted against, 35 abstained, and 21 countries did not cast votes.
