Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a fervent critic of Israel, is in Cairo for an Arab League meeting Tuesday as the Palestinians seek support for a UN membership bid later this month.

The meeting of the 22-member Arab bloc comes after US President Barack Obama warned the Palestinian bid to become the 194th member of the United Nations was a "distraction" and would not result in viable statehood.

Russia has said it will back the Palestinians, while the European Union has been divided.

Late on Monday, Arab foreign ministers agreed to marshal support for the Palestinian bid, which president Mahmud Abbas is expected to launch when the UN General Assembly opens on  20 September.

Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi said after that meeting that "consultations and communications will continue in order to reach the goal" of Palestinian UN membership.

Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told reporters a task force headed by Qatar and including Egypt and Jordan would lobby international support for UN membership.

Erakat said UN membership would not preclude negotiations with Israel which have been on hold since September 2010 over Jewish settlement construction.

Erdogan, a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause, was to address the opening session of Tuesday's session.

On Monday, Obama said the Palestinians should not seek full UN membership through the Security Council, where Washington has said it will use its veto, but should negotiate with Israel.
"What happens in New York City can occupy a lot of press attention but is not going to change actually what is happening on the ground until the Israelis and Palestinians sit down," he said.
Obama said he believed the most likely scenario was for the Palestinians to seek to upgrade their representation from their current observer status to that of non-member state in the UN General Assembly.

"We are only one vote in the General Assembly. Clearly there are a lot of countries ready to go with the Palestinians -- depending on the resolution," he said.
"That's very different than going to the Security Council, and it's true that I have said very publicly that, if this were to come to the Security Council, we would object very strongly."

Abbas told a Jordanian newspaper on Sunday the Palestinians would bid for UN membership "despite the obstacles and dangers, including US threats to halt 470 million dollars in annual assistance."

Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath told Egyptian television Monday that Palestinians expect to garner "more than 160 votes" at the General Assembly and "will continue to knock on the door until we get (full) membership."

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton who attended Monday's meeting at the Arab League has said the European Union supports a Palestinian state achieved through "negotiations."

On Monday, Russia's UN envoy Vitaly Churkin said Moscow would back the Palestinian bid.

Much admired on the Arab street, Erdogan is on an Arab Spring tour of Egypt, Tunisia and Libya where pro-democracy uprisings unseated veteran autocratic leaders.
But he said before flying to Cairo that he would not go on a threatened trip to the Gaza Strip.

"My visit to Gaza is out of the question. But I want to say that I long to visit Gaza... in the shortest possible time," Erdogan said in televised remarks.
Erdogan had threatened to visit Gaza as ties with Israel plunged to an all time low.

Ankara earlier this month expelled the Israeli ambassador and suspended all military ties and defence trade in retaliation for Israel's refusal to apologise for a deadly raid on a Turkish ship which killed nine people last year.

Erdogan's visit to Cairo is his first since the ouster of veteran president Hosni Mubarak in February and he was to meet some of the young activists who spearheaded the popular uprising as well as the new authorities.

He was accompanied by his wife and children, six cabinet ministers and a large business delegation and was expected to oversee the signing of several agreements and launch a council of "strategic cooperation."

His visit also comes after Egypt's own ties with Israel chilled after protesters ransacked the Jewish state's embassy in Cairo on Friday night, prompting the ambassador to head home.