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Support for Mideast action
30/11/2007 09:22 - (SA)
New York - 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 programme 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 recognises 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 organise 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 programme of action, including by encouraging and recognising progress and preventing any support for acts of violence or terrorism intended to disrupt their efforts".
It also "calls on those states and international organisations 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 co-ordinator for the Middle East peace process, the UN chief's spokesperson Michele Montas said.
Serry will also act as Ban's representative to the Palestinian Liberation Organisation 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.
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