The UN Security Council failed on Sunday to forge a compromise on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, and will make a last ditch effort on Monday to get US support, said reports.
"There is a chance for a text that all members of the council can subscribe to but I would call it a minority chance," British UN Ambassador Sir Jeremy Greenstock said after marathon weekend negotiations ended late on Sunday.
At issue is a repeat call by Palestinians that the 15-nation council state its willingness in principle to send unarmed UN observers to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip even if Israel refuses to allow them into the territories, said Reuters.
The United States and Israel reject this.
Ambassadors are working on a compromise proposal by Britain, France, Ireland and Norway that makes no mention of an observer force. But Washington has some objections to this text also, said the agency.
"There are very strong views that do not coincide on the most important aspects of the text," Greenstock told reporters as the council adjourned on Sunday evening.
The council will reconvene on Monday morning "to decide one way or another during the day," he said.
If a joint council position were possible, members wanted to be able to state it to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan before the start of the Arab summit in Jordan on Tuesday, Greenstock said.
Annan left New York for the Jordanian capital, Amman, on Saturday to attend the summit.
The role Annan might play in bringing Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table after almost six months of clashes that have left 444 dead is one of the points of contention in the draft resolution.
Diplomats told AFP that the US representatives on the council conceded that the US government under President George W. Bush was not as engaged in the Israeli-Palestinian issue as the Clinton administration had been.
But, the diplomats said, the United States was opposed to wording in the draft resolution which would give Annan too central a role.
Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon, like his predecessor, Ehud Barak, has made it clear that he wants to tackle problems with the Palestinians bilaterally, without international involvement.
For that reason, Israel is resolutely opposed to a Palestinian proposal that the Security Council authorize a force of UN military and police observers for the Palestinian territories, where an uprising erupted in late September, according to AFP – Albawaba.com
