UNITED NATIONS, Sept 4: UN ambassadors conducted marathon crisis talks over the weekend to rescue a world summit and some questioned whether a meaningful document could still be produced in two weeks’ time.
All the major issues — development, human rights councils, a peace-building commission, terrorism, disarmament and nonproliferation, protection of people threatened with genocide and UN management reforms — were still unresolved in negotiations on Saturday among a core group of 32 nations.
“One of the definitions of madness is you keep doing the same thing but you expect different results,” said Pakistan’s UN ambassador, Munir Akram. “We are in a crisis situation at the moment.”
Secretary-General Kofi Annan had hoped the Sept 14-16 summit of 175 world leaders, including US President George W. Bush, would map out new approaches to the international system. Rich nations were to agree on a development agenda in exchange for support on Western demands on human rights, terrorism and UN management reforms following a spate of scandals.
General Assembly President Jean Ping, Gabon’s foreign minister, hoped to produce another draft document by Tuesday or Wednesday that took the myriad views into consideration as the diplomats planned talks through the US Labour Day holiday weekend.
“If it’s all night, it’s all right.” said US ambassador John Bolton. “Our feeling is that we can still achieve a strong outcome document.”
But India’s ambassador, Nirupam Sen, said the final document would be less comprehensive than the current 39-page draft “because quite clearly there are certain differences which are insurmountable, so the level of detail will have to be less.”
Bolton, who has put forward a host of amendments, contends the United Nations was trying to paper over differences that have existed for years and serious negotiations did not get under way until recently.
“It’s a mistake to think that you can pretend that there aren’t disagreements on some of these issues,” he said. “A negotiation process is like making sausage. It isn’t necessarily pretty.”
The 25-member European Union stands by the current draft along with many African and Latin American nations, and blames both the US and a group of skilled, vocal ambassadors, including those from Pakistan, Egypt, Algeria, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela, of drowning out other voices.—Reuters
