Palestine should first first make peace with Israel: Netanyahu

United Nations: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the UN General Assembly on Friday that his country desired peace with the Palestinians, but this could only be achieved through talks, not a UN resolution.

Netanyahu was speaking after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas the General Assembly to ask it to recognise a Palestinian state. The latter filed a request with the UN for full membership earlier in the day.

"As Israel's prime minister I didn't come here for applause. I came here to speak the truth," he said at the start of his address.

"The Palestinians should first make peace with Israel and then get their state," he told the hall.

Netanyahu complained to the hall that Israel was often pressured to make concessions.

"These people say to me constantly: just make a sweeping offer and everything will work out," he said, adding that the threat of "militant Islam" made it impossible to do so.

"When we left Gaza ... the moderates were devoured by the radicals," he said.

But if peace can be achieved through talks with the Palestinians, he said, "Israel will not be the last state to welcome a Palestinian state into the United Nations. We will be the first."

Israel criticises Palestinian president's UN speechIsrael on Friday described Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' address to the UN General Assembly as a "speech of incitement", Xinhua reported.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman made the comments while speaking to a TV channel in New York, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meetings.

Lieberman, a minister of the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet, said that Israel had no choice but to press ahead " without paying attention, and without making threats."

He said much of Abbas' speech was devoted to detailing how settlements have scuttled the peace process.

Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni, in his reaction to Abbas' speech, said Abbas had clearly enlisted world opinion behind his cause to the detriment of Israel's international standing.

Abbas, during his speech, also called on the UN to admit an independent Palestinian state as a full member based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Minutes before his speech, Abbas formally presented the Palestinian statehood bid to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Several countries in the council have pledged their support for the statehood bid, but Israel's close ally the US has indicated that it would use its veto power in the council to stop it.

India cosies up to Iran a day after Ahmadinejad blasts West

United Nations: A day after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad triggered a US-led Western walkout from the UN General Assembly with a combative speech, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met him in a reiteration of their close ties regardless.

"The previously planned meeting basically focused on our bilateral relationship," Indian Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai told reporters on Friday when asked if the meeting with Ahmadinejad coupled with Indian support for Palestine would have an impact on New Delhi's ties with Washington.

The two leaders did not discuss Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's speech making a historic bid for UN membership bid for an independent state of Palestine earlier on Friday, but they both "reiterated their support for the Palestinian attempt to seek membership of UN," he said.

In fact, during this meeting between the two leaders after a long time, Manmohan Singh accepted in principle Ahmadinejad's renewed invitation to visit Iran. The dates of prime minister's visit are to be worked out, but Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar will be visiting shortly, Mathai said.

Though the two leaders did not discuss the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, another issue of divergence with the US, "they discussed a whole series of projects between the two countries, including potential cooperation in the field of hydrocarbons," he said.

But Mathai was quick to reassure that Manmohan Singh's meeting with the Iranian leader and India's support for Palestine and the absence of a meeting with President Barack Obama did not reflect a cooling of ties between India and the US.

Like other Indian officials before, he too attributed the reason for Manmohan Singh not meeting Obama to "the fact that the Prime Minister arrived after the President left."

But India and the US are planning a meeting between External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, possibly Monday, after Manmohan Singh leaves for home.

In his speech blasting the US on Thursday, Ahmadinejad questioned whether Islamist terrorists were behind the Sep 11, 2001 attacks on the US.

Blaming the West for a list of ills throughout history, from slavery to the two world wars and the global economic crisis, he also criticised the Obama administration for killing Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.