UNITED NATIONS: UN Security Council envoys huddled behind closed doors Saturday to mull a text in support of the Middle East peace process which their ministers plan to adopt here next week.
US Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad announced Friday that the council would hold a ministerial meeting next Tuesday to encourage the successful conclusion of achieving the two-state solution.
He was referring to the roadmap put forward by the Middle East diplomatic quartet – the European Union, Russia, the United States and the United Nations – for the creation of a viable Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel.
The 15 envoys kicked off their consultations shortly after 11 am to weigh a proposed US draft resolution that could be submitted to Tuesday s ministerial session.
Khalilzad s proposed text on Friday received strong backing from his Russian counterpart Vitaly Churkin, who stressed the need to avoid any kind of a pause in the Middle East peace process.
The Russian envoy noted that the proposed text was meant to send a political signal which would show the encouragement of the Security Council for the political process to continue on basis of existing understanding within the quartet.
This in our view should result in an impetus which would be sufficient to carry the political process in the Middle East to the next stage next year, he then added.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is to be in New York Monday and Tuesday for UN talks on Palestinian-Israeli peace, Zimbabwe s crisis and piracy off the Somali coast.
Monday s quartet meeting will bring together Rice, UN chief Ban Ki-moon, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
The quartet is also to confer with an Arab League contact group comprising Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen plus Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, diplomats said.
The already slow-moving Middle East peace talks have been further affected by political uncertainty ahead of Feb. 10 Israeli snap polls that were scheduled after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert presented his resignation over a series of allegations of graft.
No visible progress has been made on ending the core issues of Jerusalem, borders, refugees and security between the Palestinians and Israelis since Rice and President George W. Bush relaunched the negotiations in Annapolis, Maryland in November 2007 after a seven-year hiatus.
Meanwhile, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is set to travel to Washington on Dec. 19 for Middle East peace talks with US President George W. Bush, and fly to Moscow three days later to confer with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. -AFP
