UNITED NATIONS, Sept 18: The UN General Assembly will hold an emergency session on Friday on the Middle East after Israel’s threat to expel Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat from the West Bank, UN sources said on Thursday.

The meeting will address Sudan’s request for a resolution calling on Israel to desist from its plans to remove Arafat. A similar measure was blocked in the Security Council this week by a US veto.

The United States came in for heavy international criticism after blocking the Council resolution, which it said was unbalanced and did not address the question of Palestinian “terrorism.”

According to a letter seen by AFP, Sudan requested the emergency session “in light of the inability of the Security Council to fulfil its responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.”

The latest crisis began when Israel’s security cabinet voted last week to “remove” Arafat, saying he had become an obstacle to the broken-down peace process with the Palestinians. That move also sparked global outcry.

Unlike Council resolutions, which are legally binding, resolutions passed in the General Assembly do not have the same legal weight and cannot be blocked by veto.

The request for the emergency session was made in the name of the Arab bloc at the United Nations, of which Sudan is the current chairman.

Israel announced its decision on Arafat after two more Palestinian suicide bombings last week. Israel had already broken off contacts with the Palestinians on the so-called “road map” to peace after an attack in August.

In vetoing the Council resolution criticizing Israel, the United States repeatedly insisted that the internationally-backed road map should be the focus of peace efforts, rather than new UN resolutions.

Terje Roed-Larsen, the UN’s special envoy to the Middle East, told the Council on Monday that implementation of the road map, which calls for a Palestinian state by 2005, was at a standstill.

He said the question of Palestinian attacks on Israel had become the “sole focus” of the peace process and that Israel needed to do more, including putting an end to settlement activity in the occupied territories.

The division in the Council over Israel comes just days before leaders from around the world arrive for the UN’s annual general debate, with a US request for international help in Iraq hanging in the balance.—AFP