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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| UN body defers vote on Gaza war crime report |
| 2009-10-03 |
| [Al Arabiya Latest] The United Nations put off taking action on Friday on a U.N. report that accuses both Israel and by Palestinian militants of war crimes in Gaza, after U.S. pressure aimed at getting the peace process back on track. The move is an early concrete result of the Obama administration's engagement in the Human Rights Council, which Washington joined in June. The Council had been due to vote on Friday on a resolution that would have condemned Israel's failure to cooperate with a U.N. war crimes investigation led by Richard Goldstone, and forwarded his report to the Security Council. But Pakistan, speaking for Arab, Islamic, and African sponsors of a resolution, formally asked the forum to defer action on their text until the next regular session in March. This would "give more time for a broad-based and comprehensive consideration" of the report, Pakistan's envoy Zamir Akram told the 47-member-state forum. A diplomatic source said the move had followed intense lobbying by the United States, which is seeking to restart peace negotiations in the Middle East. "There is agreement to defer given immense pressure from the United States," he told Reuters. Earlier, Palestinian ambassador Ibrahim Khraishi said his delegation would not give up what he called the "legal track", and planned to pursue the issue at the rights council in March. "It will be deferred for the coming session, giving more time to all the parties, Israelis and Palestinians, to discuss a very important and historic report," Khraishi told Reuters. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 The problem with NGOs (and UN bureaucracy is the biggest NGO of them all) is what they've abrogated to themselves authority without accepting any accountability. IMO introducing them to some form of accountability is long overdue. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2009-10-03 09:49 |
| #1 People get nervous when the check hasn't cleared. They become even more nervous when the check hasn't even been printed yet. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-10-03 08:50 |