UN Secretary General Kofi Annan agreed Tuesday to briefly delay his fact-finding team into the Israeli army's offensive on the Jenin refugee camp to discuss changes to its make-up with Israel.
Reversing his earlier pledge of support, Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided Tuesday to withhold Israeli cooperation from the fact-finding committee for the time being, expressing concern that the committee's composition and mandate indicated that “it might be weighted toward a pro-Palestinian stance.”
Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Yehuda Lancry, told reporters after meeting Annan that his government had asked for talks on a "more balanced" team including military experts and anti-terror experts. The ambassador told Israel Radio: "He (Annan) is open to the idea of expanding the team to include a military expert and perhaps an expert on counter-terrorism, as full members and not advisers."
Lancry added the mission "should cover not only the military activity of Israel but also the terrorist network that has flourished in the Jenin refugee camp and which generated the Israeli military operation."
An Israeli official charged that the team was chosen by Annan without consulting Israel, as had been agreed, and the members were political, not from a military background as Israel had requested.
Annan's spokesman's office said Annan "agreed to postpone the departure of the fact-finding team to allow this consultation to take place, but he expects the team to be in the Middle East by this Saturday."
Annan said that "while he would not discuss his choice of team members, he did not rule out adding additional experts as might be deemed necessary," the office said in a note to the media.
Nasser Al-Kidwa, the Palestinian U.N. observer, called the Israeli decision to seek a delay "blatant blackmail which will definitely undermine the integrity of the fact-finding process." "We thought that the Israeli side did not have anything to hide, but obviously they do," he said.
Meanwhile, the UN Security Council warned Israel "no harm must come" to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, besieged in his headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
Council members also insisted late Tuesday that Israel lift the siege of Arafat's compound and allow him to move freely, council president Sergei Lavrov, Russian ambassador to the United Nations, stated.
Lavrov was speaking to reporters after the council met for emergency consultations behind closed doors at Syria's request to discuss a bomb explosion in the Ramallah compound.
For his part, Al-Kidwa said the blast was "a very dangerous development" that proved Israel's "extremely hostile and dangerous intentions."
"Members of the council expressed serious concern for the safety of Chairman Arafat," Lavrov said.
"They stressed that no harm must come to him or others in the compound with him. They reiterated that the siege must be lifted and Chairman Arafat must have full freedom of movement in order to be able to carry out his functions." (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
