Annan says US should support UN development goals
Mon Sep 5, 2005 
Reuters

By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan predicted on Monday the United States would fail in its efforts to delete the phrase Millennium Development Goals from a document on wide-ranging U.N. reforms world leaders are to approve at a summit next week.
The goals, enunciated at a 2000 U.N. summit, describe eight objectives on poverty, hunger, primary education, AIDS and others, with dates to implement them.
Days before the largest gathering of world leaders in history on September 14-16, U.N. ambassadors were still engaged in marathon negotiations to overcome deep divisions on how to tackle extreme poverty and enhance human rights, U.N. management reforms and global security.
I think the idea of expunging the phrase Millennium Development Goals from the document is not on, Annan told BBC World Service radio.
It's a phrase that has been embraced by the whole world, he said. And this is why I think that anyone who tries to remove it is going to fail.
The United States proposed that Millennium Development Goals be substituted by internationally-agreed development goals and wants to make sure Washington does not commit itself to a timetable on foreign aid, as the European Union has done.
U.S. Ambassador John Bolton maintains some of the language went further than what the United States had agreed to in previous conferences and that the United Nations was trying to paper over differences that had existed for years.
But Annan insisted most of the 191 U.N. member states disagreed with the U.S. position.
These are simple objectives. People want to live in dignity. We have to respect their human dignity and we have to give them dreams and targets to meet, he said.
SUMMIT HOPES
Annan had hoped the summit of 175 world leaders would map out new approaches to the international system and revitalize the world body. Rich nations were to agree on a development agenda in exchange for support for Western demands on human rights, terrorism, intervention in case of genocide and war crimes, and U.N. management reforms.
But the issues brought out deep disagreements on every key subject, even between the United States and the European Union as well as among developing nations.
Another draft document is expected to be produced by Tuesday but with brackets -- paragraphs where disagreements persist. No one doubts a document will eventually emerge. Whether it would cut new ground is another question.
The EU is among the few groups that backs the current draft document prepared by General Assembly President Jean Ping. The United States has put forth more than 500 amendments to it while Russia, Cuba, Pakistan, Egypt, Algeria, Iran and others also sought extensive changes.
Bolton was somewhat optimistic that a agreement could be reached. I think we are still making progress. I think it is slow but it is steady, he said.
Asked about Bolton, Annan said any ambassador would have to engage in give and take or in the end you can't be effective.
The Bush administration has greatly increased foreign aid but refuses to be tied down to an eventual target of 0.7 percent of its gross national product as the European Union nations have done.
Annan noted that other states also had strong objections to various parts of the draft document.
One should not allow a minority or small minority to withhold their consent unreasonably, he said. But they tend to want to get consensus at all costs, and therefore you have 191 vetoes, Annan said.