By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, September 23, updated -- While Mahmoud Abbas and Benyamin Netanyahu traded speeches about Palestinian statehood on Friday, a diplomatic incident occurred on the fourth floor of the General Assembly Hall.
Sources tell Inner City Press that the Turkish delegation literally had a run-in with security in the UN, in which the Turkish prime minister Erdogan was touched. Then, a male security official was injured and taken to the hospital, another officer also assaulted and injured. Several sources spoke of a door broken in the UN earlier in the week, attributing it to Turkey.
Inner City Press observed Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's chief of staff Vijay Nambiar break in to a rare run, accompanied by UN Safety and Security chief Gregory Starr, out of the North Lawn building and on to First Avenue in the rain, crossing it toward Turkey's Mission to the UN.
Later a senior UN official told Inner City Press bitterly that "Turkey is throwing its weight around," linking the incident to Turkey's anger, including at the UN, about the Palmer (and Uribe) report about the Gaza flotilla incident in which eight Turkish citizens were killed.
The source asked, "A new muscular foreign policy -- even inside the UN building?"
By the same token, why lay hands even inadvertently on a country's prime minister?
After multiple Inner City Press sources told it about the incident early Friday afternoon, Inner City Press asked the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary General for its version and was told they were waiting for their "line" on it.
