Palestinian state looms as key issue for Obama at U.N.

President Obama begins an intense two days of meetings with world leaders after arriving Monday evening for a United Nations General Assembly preoccupied with questions of Middle East peace.

Hours after delivering his suggestions for how to cut the federal deficit to a bipartisan panel of Congress, Obama turns to a vexing set of questions surrounding the security of Israel and the effort by Palestinian leaders to gain U.N. recognition of their own state.

Efforts by U.S. and Israeli diplomats to head off the request appear to have failed, and Obama now faces the growing possibility of casting the promised U.S. veto before the U.N. Security Council.

Whether or not he does, Obama risks igniting anger in the Middle East at a time when his foreign policy plan involves trying to build bridges.

As he delivers his address before the General Assembly on Wednesday, Obama will note the changes that have swept the world since its last gathering and celebrate the international cooperation that ended the regime of Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi.

He will also press for democratic ideals in the formation of the new Libyan government, meeting with the chairman of the Transitional National Council, which the U.S. recognizes as the legitimate government of Libya.

His one-on-one meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on the sidelines of the U.N. gathering will be the first between the two since Obama laid out plans this year to transition the U.S. military out of Afghanistan.

But the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is expected to overshadow the other discussions this week. Usually a carefully scripted affair, this year’s General Assembly convenes amid uncertainty about when and how exactly the Palestinians will make their move.

The pressure continues to build as Obama prepares to meet Tuesday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Leading pro-Israel members of Congress today urged the president to launch a “diplomatic offense” to stop what they see as Turkey’s move toward confrontation with Israel.

Ties between Israel and Turkey have frayed badly in the wake of the 2010 conflict over a Turkish aid flotilla to Gaza, and Erdogan recently announced the Turkish military will protect future shipments.

Turkey is shifting to “a policy of confrontation, if not hostility toward our allies in Israel,” the bipartisan group of senators said in a Monday letter to Obama, urging him to “outline Turkey’s eroding support in Congress” in his meeting with Erdogan.

Turkey’s recent moves look to some as a reorientation away from Europe, although at the beginning of a visit to Germany on Monday, Turkish President Abdullah Gul made it clear his country still wishes to join the European Union. His country’s leadership will be satisfied with nothing less than full membership, he said.

Such is the complicated set of issues Obama meets when he arrives. But before Obama begins the official and sideline meetings of the U.N. summit, he’ll squeeze in some campaign fundraising. The president’s evening event Monday is a high-dollar Democratic fundraiser.