Diplomats trying to save a global racism conference were struggling early Saturday to overcome deep divisions over the Middle East and the legacy of the slave trade, said reports.
African, European and Arab negotiators were set to continue talking through the night, but a dejected European diplomat told AFP shortly after midnight: "the chance of success appears very, very slim".
"Today, it's very difficult; I don't know if there will be an agreement," Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel, negotiating on behalf of the European Union presidency, told a news briefing on Friday evening.
The United States and Israel stormed out of the conference on Monday over "hateful" disputed language in an original draft text on the Jewish state's treatment of Palestinians.
Since then, the delegations at the UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban, on South Africa's east coast, have been going head-to-head on both the Middle East and slavery, exasperating campaigners who had hoped to focus attention on the plight of victims of racism around the world.
As midnight approached, the United Nations rescheduled the final plenary session, originally time-tabled for 4:00 p.m. on Friday, to anywhere between 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. on Saturday.
African calls for reparations for slavery and colonialism, as well as an apology from the countries that profited from those practices, and Arab demands for Israeli policies towards Palestinians to be condemned have bogged down the conference since its opening on August 31.
Since the US and Israeli withdrawal from the conference, South Africa, which is chairing the conference in Durban has produced two new draft texts to address the issue; the latest, presented early Thursday, as a "take-it-or-leave-it" option.
The proposed compromise, the second South African proposal rejected by the Arab states, sought to bridge the gap between the Arabs' call for the conference to condemn Israeli practices as racist and the European Union's refusal to allow the conference to take sides in the conflict.
Palestinian ambassador Salman el-Herfi said the new text was "totally unacceptable," according to Haaretz newspaper.
The text recognizes the Holocaust as unique and condemns anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.
While it does not specifically criticize Israel or Zionism, the text contains references to "the plight of the Palestinian people under foreign occupation," and it "recognizes the right of refugees to return." – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
