Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas expressed Sunday hopes that next year will be the year of establishing the independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

"We hope that next year will be the year of Palestinian independence," Abbas told reporters at the end of Eid al-Fitr prayers in a mosque in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Abbas has repeatedly announced that he will go to the United Nations to demand an international recognition of an independent state of Palestine. He intends to promote the Palestinian position in the United Nations to a nonmember state.

Abbas called for the UN bid as the direct Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations have been stalled since October 2010 after Israel refused to halt settlement activities.

Speaker at the mosque where Abbas prayed Sunday also called for ending the more than six years of internal Palestinian division and finalizing the reconciliation deals and understandings reached with Hamas movement to unify the Palestinians.