By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, April 8 -- As UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his German negotiator Angela Kane play chicken with the Syrian government on the scope of the requested chemical weapons probe, another move is afoot at the UN in New York.
Inner City Press has learned of another Qatar sponsored draft resolution making its way to the UN General Assembly. A draft was completed last Thursday, April 4. Issues include, of course, chemical weapons: and representation, Syria's UN seat, a "first step on that issue," as an Inner City Press source put it.
Also involved in drafting, the sources say, have been Saudi Arabia and the P-3 (France, UK and US, an acronym some use). Last year when Qatar's Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser was President of the General Assembly, the moves were more out in the open.
When Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari objected, asking under what rule the sponsors were proceeding, Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser dismissed the question, saying merely, we have the votes.
Now Vuk Jeremic, Serbia's former foreign minister, is General Assembly President. Ja'afari praised him, here.
From inside the PGA's Office in the increasingly empty North Lawn Building, where Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser's chief of staff the slayer of Javier Ruperez once held court, Inner City Press is exclusively told of cigar smoking and dark talk.
Jeremic's focus is on the UN's ad hoc tribunals, the session scheduled for April 10, now with Ban Ki-moon attending between Pope Francis and a Washington visit to Barack Obama. So will Qatar's Syria resolution have to wait? Watch this site.
