United Nations | Wednesday
UNITED Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has refused Israel’s demand to delay and change some members of a UN fact-finding team that will examine Israel’s assault on the Jenin refugee camp.
Annan said he expected the team, led by former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, to arrive in the Middle East by this Saturday.
The UN Security Council held emergency consultations on Tuesday evening after Israel announced it was delaying the fact-finding mission.
Israel’s UN Ambassador Yehuda Lancry said they wanted more military and counter-terrorism experts added to the three-member team, assurances it would confine its activities to Jenin, and an investigation of Palestinian terrorist activities in the refugee camp.
There have been accusations that Israel massacred Palestinian civilians in the camp, but Israel says the deaths and destruction resulted from gun battles between its soldiers and Palestinian gunmen. The fighting in Jenin is thought to be the fiercest of Israel’s 3-week-old military campaign.
While the council was holding consultations, Lancry met Annan to ask for changes in the team’s composition and its scope of action.
Annan refused to discuss his choice of team members, though he did not rule out adding additional experts if necessary.
But Lancry told Israel Radio later: ”He (Annan) is open to the idea of expanding the team to include a military expert and perhaps an expert on counter-terrorism, as full members and not advisers,” as quoted by wire services.
At the end of a nearly two-hour meeting, the council issued a statement saying it expects ”fast implementation” of Friday’s resolution – and Israel’s ”full cooperation” with the secretary-general and the team.
Nasser Al-Kidwa, the Palestinian U.N. observer, called the Israeli decision to seek a delay ”blatant blackmail which will definitely undermine the integrity of the fact-finding process.” ”We thought that the Israeli side did not have anything to hide, but obviously they do,” he said.
The Israeli army said it set off controlled explosions on Tuesday to blow up grenades found in Arafat’s compound. But Tawfik Tirawi, head of Palestinian intelligence in the West Bank, accused Israel of wanting to destroy a wall so they could easily enter.
The Security Council warned Israel late on Tuesday that ”no harm must come” to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, besieged in his headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
Council members also insisted that Israel lift the siege of Arafat’s compound and allow him to move freely, council president Sergei Lavrov, Russian ambassador to the United Nations, said.
Meanwhile, US President waded into the debate ands said the creation of a Palestinian state is the only solution to the Middle East crisis, US President George Bush told Morocco’s King Mohammed VI during talks in Washington, the official Moroccan news agency MAP reported on Wednesday.
”The United States recognises that the only solution to the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis is the setting up of two sovereign states, restoring their dignity and their security,” Bush was quoted as saying.
”We must work to bring this about as soon as possible,” he continued.
The Moroccan king, during their talks at the White House on Tuesday, said his country was ready ”to contribute to the ongoing efforts,” MAP reported.
However he added that a Palestinian return to the negotiating table depended upon ”the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the Israelis from the occupied territories and… that (Palestinian) President (Yasser) Arafat regains his freedom of movement as soon as possible”.
Arafat is currently being held under virtual house arrest in his offices in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
Bush has accepted an invitation by Morocco’s King Mohammed VI and will pay an official visit here ”as soon as he is able to”, MAP added. – Sapa