US urges quick negotiations, changes on UN reform
By Evelyn Leopold
Reuters
Wednesday, August 24, 2005; 11:01 PM
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S. Ambassador John Bolton urged U.N. member nations on Wednesday in a letter to accelerate negotiations on development, security and human rights proposals less than a month before 175 world leaders are to approve reform proposals at a summit.
Bolton's letter, circulated to the other 190 ambassadors, at the United Nations comes a week after the United States submitted more than 500 amendments to a draft document diplomats have been negotiating for six months, causing some envoys to panic that agreement might not be reached.
In talks with delegates, Bolton has suggested the 30-page document be replaced by a three-page statement or negotiated line by line, diplomats reported.
Nevertheless, Bolton told ambassadors in his letter that time is short and negotiations should begin immediately. He suggested they could begin with the draft document submitted by General Assembly President Jean Ping but open to alternative formats if they help us achieve consensus.
I plan on participating personally in this exercise and hope you will do the same, Bolton wrote. Many of the proposals enjoy wide support but there is much still to do if we are to reach consensus on the strongest possible measures to promote our common agenda.
The U.S. amendments, obtained by Reuters would eliminate reference to Millennium Development Goals approved by world leaders five years ago. They set deadlines to reduce extreme poverty, AIDS and raise education levels around the world.
The U.S. amendments also oppose further action on climate change, new pledges for foreign aid, and call for nuclear powers to accelerate the reduction of their arsenals.
At the same time the United States wants stronger action against terrorism, a new and stronger human rights body and a host of U.N. management reforms following the scandal-tainted $64 billion oil-for-food program for Iraq.
The summit was called by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to overhaul the world body and take action on reducing extreme poverty, the threat of war, terrorism and proliferation. The proposals would promote human rights around the world, including intervention in face of genocide.
Ping, the General Assembly president, has proposed a core group of 20 to 30 nations, including the United States and the other four permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, to meet soon and resolve remaining differences.
Until now, the drafting has been informal in hopes of keeping the focus on the package as a whole without line by line revisions.
The new group, Ping told reporters on Tuesday,, would focus on issues where there was the most disagreement such as terrorism, human rights, disarmament, development and the world's responsibility to intervene in countries practicing genocide and other egregious rights violations.
The United States is not the only country with major objections to the proposals, though Washington has put more of them on paper in the 30-page document.
Arab nations object to some of the wording on combating terrorism, Russia and others are apprehensive of any license to intervene in case of genocide and most developing nations say the commitments on future assistance are too weak.
Only the 25-member European Union, Australia, Canada and New Zealand appear to be backing most of the key proposals in the draft document.
© 2005 Reuters