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UN Security Council takes up Mideast peace resolution
AFP, November
29, 2007
UNITED NATIONS,
Nov 29, 2007 (AFP) - The United States on Thursday presented
the UN Security Council with a draft resolution backing the
US-sponsored Annapolis conference decision to relaunch the
Mideast peace process.
Distributed to
reporters, the draft says the Council "endorses the program
of action for negotiations and implementation of outstanding
obligations ... agreed upon by the Israeli and Palestinian
leadership at Annapolis, Maryland on November 27, 2007."
Under US
President George W. Bush's aegis, Isaeli and Palestinian
leaders met at the Maryland state capital to revive the
stagnant Middle East peace process and set the goal of a
peace agreement and a new Palestinian state by the end of
2008.
After
consultations on the draft text, US ambassador Zalmay
Khalilzad said the 15-member council had "a good discussion
... there was enormous support."
"Everyone
recognizes that we collectively and individually have to do
what we can to be supportive, to sustain the momentum and to
help the parties as they make the difficult decisions that
they have to make" to achieve peace, he added.
French
Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert said the international
community "must support the process and the dynamics of
Annapolis."
He said France
"deems important that the Security Council, as the US
inititiative aims at, supports this dynamic triggered in
Annapolis, which must bring about, before the end of 2008, a
viable and democratic Palestinian state living in peace with
Israel."
Ripert said
that on December 17 France will organize in Paris "a donors'
conference to bring financial and political support to the
Palestinian Authority."
Indonesian
Ambassador Marty Natalegawa, council president for November,
said the draft resolution might be adopted on Friday when
the UN body holds its monthly debate on the Middle East.
The US-proposed
document "calls on all states to lend their diplomatic and
political support to Israeli-Palestinian efforts to
implement their agreed program of action, including by
encouraging and recognizing progress and preventing any
support for acts of violence or terrorism intended to
disrupt their efforts."
It also "calls
on those states and international organizations in a
position to do so to assist in the development of the
Palestinian economy, including at the upcoming donors'
conference in Paris."
Also on
Thursday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon named Dutch
diplomat Robert Serry as his new special coordinator for the
Middle East peace process, the UN chief's spokeswoman
Michele Montas said.
Serry will also
act as Ban's representative to the Palestinian Liberation
Organization and the Palestinian Authority, and to the
diplomat grouping of four world powers working for Middle
East peace, known as the quartet -- United States, Russia,
European Union and the UN. |
