By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, September 28 -- Still searching for nine votes for Palestine membership in the UN, the Non-Aligned Movement caucus met in the Security Council Tuesday afternoon, joined by Egypt's pre- and post-Arab Spring Permanent Representative and the Palestinian delegation.
Afterward Nestor Osorio of Colombia, a NAM member which will not vote for Palestinian membership, took the line that bilateral negotiations are the only way. Others rolled their eyes.
And so Wednesday morning at 9:30 the application of Palestine is set to be referred to an Ad Hoc committee made up of the same 15 Security Council members. One well placed diplomat emphasized to Inner City Press that the Ad Hoc committee can't just "sit on" the application, but has to make a report.
"The full Security Council, for sure, can sit on the Palestinian application," the diplomat continued, smiling.
While one Permanent Representative told Inner City Press action on Palestine could be expected in two weeks, another well placed European source said "at the very least a month," tying this to the Quartet statement of September 23.
There's been a lot of questioning about the positions of three countries: Bosnia, Nigeria and Gabon. Some say that members of the OIC should of course vote with Palestine. Others point to US and French ties and, for the former, to the Republica Srbska.
On a somewhat related matter, Inner City Press on Tuesday morning began asking diplomats about the tensions in northern Kosovo, with seven Serbs and four NATO peacekeepers injured.
At first few had heard of it, and at noon Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky answered Inner City Press' question about it by saying if he got a statement or "line" he'd pass it on. (It hasn't happened.)
Later Kosovo was put on the Council's agenda for Wednesday afternoon along with, not disclosed in the Program sent out, the new Syria draft resolution. Apparently now resolution "in blue" can be easily superceded and replaced: call it "light blue."
