Trip delays urgent U.N. session on Israeli barrier
Source: Reuters
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 4 (Reuters) - The U.N. General Assembly delayed an emergency session on Israel's West Bank barrier for 10 days to enable the assembly president to complete a trip to the Middle East, diplomats said on Monday. The special session had been tentatively set for Dec. 5 when president Haya Rashed Al Khalifa of Bahrain asked for a delay until Dec. 15 so she could travel to Dubai for a week to attend a conference on women and education in the Arab world, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Aides to Haya said the trip was just one reason for the delay but declined to give others. Arab states asked for the emergency session on Nov. 22 after U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan reported he was ready to set up a registry to record claims of damages caused by Israel's construction of its West Bank barrier, and invited the 192-nation assembly to approve his proposals. A mix of electronic fences and walls, the barrier has been under construction since 2002 and eventually will stretch more than 400 miles (650 km). Israel says it is building the barrier to keep out suicide bombers but Palestinians see the action as a land grab aimed at dashing their hopes for eventual statehood. The assembly first called for the registry in an August 2004 resolution asking Israel to heed a World Court ruling and tear down the barrier. The court said in a July 9, 2004, advisory opinion that the barrier was illegal because it cut into West Bank land to shield Israeli settlements built on territory seized by the Jewish state in the 1967 Middle East War. A draft resolution to be put to a vote at the Dec. 15 assembly session calls for the establishment within six months of a three-member board and a secretariat to record and process damage claims, as Annan recommended. The Register of Damage will cost about $3 million a year to operate, according to an estimate of the assembly's budget committee issued on Nov. 29.
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