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US seeking to scuttle draft plan on UN reform

Only weeks from a summit on UN reforms, the US has called for a drastic renegotiation of the draft agreement and wants to scrap many of its key provisions, the Washington Post said yesterday.

A total of 750 amendments contained in a confidential 36-page document obtained by the < In them, the US government proposes to eliminate new pledges on foreign aid to poor nations, scrap provisions calling for action to halt climate change and urging greater progress by nuclear powers in dismantling their nuclear arms.

The US proposals also call for tougher action against terrorism, promoting human rights and democracy and halting the spread of the world's deadliest weapons, the daily said.

Jean Ping, the current president of the UN General Assembly, is trying to fine-tune a draft on the UN reform package in time for the summit, scheduled for Sept.14 to Sept. 16, ahead of the UN General Assembly session.

The US amendments call for striking any mention of the 2000 Millennium Development Goals, in which UN members set goals over the next 15 years to reduce poverty, preventable diseases and other scourges of the world's poor.

In their stead, the US wants to underscore the importance of the 2002 Monterrey Consensus, that focused on free-market reforms and required governments to improve accountability in exchange for aid and debt relief, the Post said.

The proposals also underscore US efforts to impose greater oversight of UN spending and to eliminate any reference to the International Criminal Court.

The US also opposes language that urges the five permanent members of the UN Security Council not to cast vetoes on resolutions to halt genocide, war crimes or ethnic cleansing, the daily added.

The proposals, the Post said, face strong resistance from poorer countries who want the UN to focus more on alleviating poverty and scale back US propensity to intervene in small countries that abuse human rights.

US and UN diplomats told the newspaper that Bolton has indicated in face-to-face meetings with foreign delegates that he is prepared to pursue other negotiating options if the current process proves cumbersome.

Bolton has suggested replacing the entire document with a brief statement, or splitting the document up by themes so nations could choose the ones to support, the diplomats said.

"We are looking at very, very difficult negotiations in the days ahead," Pakistan's UN Ambassador Munir Akram was quoted as saying by the daily.

The US has "strong positions, and many of us do have very strongly held positions. That's the nature of the game. My only regret is we didn't get into the negotiations early enough," Akram said.
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