Robert Serry called on the international community to chart a clear way toward resuming Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, stuck for nearly three years because of vast gaps between the sides over the terms of Palestinian statehood.

He suggested that the status quo is not sustainable and that the situation could quickly deteriorate.

“Without a credible political path forward, accompanied by more far-reaching steps on the ground, the viability of the Palestinian Authority and its state building agenda and, I fear, of the two-state solution itself cannot be taken for granted,” Serry told the U.N. Security Council.

The Palestinian Authority, based in the West Bank and headed by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, has won repeated praise from donor countries for trying to build a state from the ground up in the past four years. In April, donor countries said that Fayyad’s government is ready to assume responsibilities of statehood “at any point in the near future.”