BEN MACLENNAN AND ANGELA QUINTAL, Durban | Wednesday
HOPES for a compromise on the divisive issue of the Middle East were boosted at the World Conference Against Racism on Tuesday night when the European Union accepted new ”compromise language” as an ”acceptable base for negotiation”.
Belgium, which holds the presidency of the 15-member EU Council, had been mandated to participate in the drafting group convened by South African Foreign Minister and WCAR president Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, said representative Koen Vervaeke.
”After consultation among partners the EU estimates that the draft presented by the presidency of the conference constitutes an acceptable base for negotiations.
”The EU reaffirms its willingness to contribute in a constructive way to the work of the conference and to support all the efforts Madame Zuma is undertaking.”
Vervaeke repeated that EU president Louis Michel had held ”intensive consultation” on Monday night with Dlamini-Zuma and Arab League secretary-general Amr Moussa.
The meeting took place after the walkout by the US and Israeli delegations in protest against earlier language in conference documents — described by US Secretary of State Colin Powell as ”hateful” towards Israel.
On Tuesday, Michel met Dlamini-Zuma three times and also met South African president Thabo Mbeki, Vervaeke said.
Meanwhile, US-based diplomats flew out of Durban on Tuesday, leaving confusion over the status of their sole representative at the World Conference Against Racism.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, told reporters earlier on Tuesday that the US had not withdrawn from the conference as originally believed.
She had received a telephone call from the US delegation head Michael Southwick, who had wished to clarify that although he and other Washington-based diplomats were returning home as requested ”the United States is not withdrawing its delegation”.
The US consul in Durban, Craig Kuehl, would remain at the conference to represent US interests.
”I would really like to emphasise, I believe we’re back on track,” Robinson told reporters.
However, the French news agency AFP quoting unnamed state department officials in Washington, said Robinson ”was just plain wrong” or that a misunderstanding had occurred. Kuehl would certainly be in Durban because that was where he lived, but he would not participate in the conference.
However on Tuesday evening, WCAR representative Sue Markham said: ”The UN’s understanding is that the US is still participating.”
Neither the US nor Israel had withdrawn its credentials, which had been approved at a meeting of the WCAR’s credentials committee on Tuesday afternoon.
However, Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad said that the South African government was working on the assumption that the Americans had pulled out in line with Powell’s directive on Monday night.
Pahad said Dlamini-Zuma’s new draft language on the Middle East was the subject of intense informal discussions on Tuesday with various groups.
The WCAR’s bureau will meet first thing on Wednesday morning to formally constitute the new drafting group on the Middle East.
Meanwhile South Africa’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, George Nene, who sits on the working group drafting the conference’s final declaration, said: ”I want to believe we will finish by (close of business) Friday.”
Nene said slightly more than half of the paragraphs in the declaration had been agreed to. Contentious issues — including the Middle East, and reparations for slavery and colonialism — were the subject of parallel informal negotiations.
It was hoped the parties would return to the working group with an agreed text.
”There is a great possibility that we will finish on time.” – Sapa