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UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council was set to resume debate
Wednesday on an Arab call for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza
Strip as Egypt offered to host peace talks with Israel and the
Palestinians.
The 15-member body was due meet again at 1600
GMT (12 a.m. Manila time) at ministerial level to weigh a Libyan
draft resolution put forward on behalf of several Arab states.
Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalgam
said Tuesday on the sidelines of a Security Council debate on Gaza
that he expected a vote on the text Wednesday.
“It is the responsibility of the Council to
end conflicts as soon as possible, and the current conflict in Gaza
should be no exception,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud
Al-Faisal said Tuesday.
“The Council has not yet taken concrete
action. This raises questions about its credibility and the whole
system of international peace and security,” he added.
But diplomats expressed doubt that the draft,
which is opposed by Israel, would garner support from key
veto-wielding Western members, particularly the United States.
The council debate on Gaza Tuesday was
overshadowed by news of an apparent breakthrough in the mediation
undertaken by French President Nicolas Sarkozy in the Middle East.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said after
talks with Sarkozy in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh that he
invited Israel and the Palestinians for an urgent meeting to discuss
security on the Egypt-Gaza border.
Egypt “invites the Israelis and Palestinians
for an urgent meeting to reach arrangements and guarantees that
would not allow the repeat of the current escalation,” Mubarak
said.
Such guarantees would include “securing the
borders and . . . opening of the border crossings and lifting the
siege,” he said.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told
reporters here that Mubarak “invited the prime minister of Israel
tomorrow in Cairo” to discuss the issue.
And US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told
the Council: “We are pleased by and wish to commend the statement
of the president of Egypt and to follow up on that initiative.”
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband also
offered support, urging the Council “to be clear in our principles
and practical in our conclusions to reinforce these efforts.”
There was no immediate reaction from
Olmert’s office to Mubarak’s invitation.
Meanwhile, the Libyan draft “demands an
immediate and permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip with a cessation
of all military activities and violence, including Israeli military
operations and the firing of rockets, and the immediate withdrawal
of Israeli forces to positions held prior to December 27 2008 and
demands full respect of the ceasefire by both parties.”
It also calls for the immediate lifting of the
18-month Israeli blockade on Gaza and for the reopening of Gaza’s
border crossings with Israel and Egypt.
France, which chairs the council this month, had
been working with Arab states to try to work out a compromise draft
calling for an end to the Israeli military onslaught that has
claimed 660 Palestinian lives since December 27.
But Kouchner said Tuesday the focus should now
be on the Mubarak-Sarkozy initiative.
“The Security Council must back and encourage
these promising efforts,” Kouchner said. “All regional states
must support this movement and seek to foster moderation and
restraint.”
And speaking from Sharm el-Sheikh, Sarkozy
warned Tuesday that a Security Council resolution on Gaza would
“complicate” the task of achieving peace.
But Libya decided to push for a vote on its
draft anyway.
“There is no contradiction between the two
initiatives,” Shalgam told reporters.
The Libyan draft also calls on “Israel, the
occupying power, to ensure the unhindered and safe access of
humanitarian aid and other essential supplies, including food,
medicines and fuel, to the Palestinian civilian population in the
Gaza Strip.”
It further calls for the “establishment and
deployment of an international observer force to monitor
implementation of the ceasefire, to ensure protection and safety of
the Palestinian civilian population.
-- AFP
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