UN forum upholds Palestinian right to statehood

GENEVA - The main UN human rights forum overwhelmingly reaffirmed Friday the Palestinian people's right to self-determination and statehood, calling it a basic condition for achieving a lasting Middle East peace.

The United States and Guatemala were the only countries to vote against the resolution, put forward by Arab and Islamic states at the UN Commission on Human Rights. The other four permanent Security Council members - Britain, China, France and Russia - voted in favor, while Canada abstained.

Under the resolution, the Commission upheld the "inalienable, permanent and unqualified right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including their right to establish their sovereign and independent Palestinian State."

The resolution was submitted by Arab and Islamic powers, including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria, to the 53-member state forum, now mid-way through its annual six-week session. "The vote was 48 in favor, two against, two abstentions and one delegation was absent. The resolution is therefore adopted," Commission chairman Leandro Despouy, Argentina's ambassador, announced after the public roll-call vote.

U.S. envoy Shirin Tahir-Kheli and Israeli ambassador Ya'acov Levy both took the floor at the Geneva forum to condemn the resolution as preempting the outcome of negotiations and undermining peace efforts. Israel, present at the forum only as an observer state, was not given a vote but was allowed to speak.

"The resolution we have before us...preempts the outcome of the permanent status negotiations and will only undermine the attempts to reach a successful conclusion of these negotiations," Levy said. Tahir-Kheli said such UN texts, repeated year after year, "risk diminishing the prospects for peace in the Middle East." "The United States opposes this resolution, as we opposed similar ones in previous sessions of the Commission, because it attempts to prejudge final status issues that the parties have agreed will be reserved for their negotiations," she said.