DURBAN, South Africa, (Islamweb & News Agency)-Five delegates to the UN World Conference Against Racism were due to meet Wednesday morning in Durban to fine-tune a new text on the Middle East.
The five, representing South Africa, Belgium (on behalf of the European Union), the Arab League, Norway and Namibia will then present their tweaked draft to small working parties which will include representation from across the globe for further elaboration, sources close to the talks told AFP.
Their efforts to find middle ground to save the conference follow a walk-out by the United States and Israel on Monday over whay they describe as "offensive" language on Israel's treatment of Palestinians.(Read photo caption below)
The new draft was drawn up by South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who is chairing the conference.
She spent most of Tuesday on it after overnight talks with Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel, who is president of the Council of Europe, and Amr Mussa, secretary general of the Arab League.
The European Union considered her text an "acceptable basis for negotiation", a Belgian foreign ministry spokesman said.
"After consultation with other partners, the EU believes the draft constitutes an acceptable basis for negotiation," Koen Vervaeke said Tuesday evening.
He declined to give details on the proposed new text.
Suleyman al-Herfi, a member of the Palestinian delegation and the Palestinian Authority's permanent representative in South Africa, said the negotiations Tuesday had not brought any basic changes.
"The Americans, the Israelis and the Europeans are very important but they are not the conference," he said.
"We have to take into consideration the majority of the conference."
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, who is also secretary general of the conference, praised the European Union's participation at the UN conference during a press briefing Tuesday as "very constructive".
"I believe that the EU will want the text on the Middle East and the overall text of this world conference to be appropriate to a world conference against racism. ... They will be vigilant to see that there is not language which they would consider to be inappropriate," she told reporters.
The 15-nation bloc, which announced it would be staying in Durban and was united after the US-Israeli pullout, has won the backing of the 13 EU-candidate countries for its position at the talks, a source close to the discussions told AFP.
Robinson told reporters Tuesday she believed the conference was "back on course, we're steadied", while acknowledging "everybody knows the time is short".
But she added: "Very often the experience in world conferences is it doesn't happen until the end of the negotiations. ... The really tough issues don't get agreed until the 11th hour.
"And I would anticipate that we probably won't put these to bed until sometime on Friday -- that's normal," she told reporters.
A total of 163 countries are taking part in the UN conference, bringing the number of people accredited to the event to almost 18,000, conference spokeswoman Sue Markham said Tuesday.
PHOTO CAPTION:
Demonstrators at the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa protest in reaction to the U.S. and Israeli pull out from the conference Tuesday Sept. 4, 2001. The two countries pulled out Monday denouncing efforts to condemn Israel in the meetings proposed declaration. (AP Photo/Obed Zilwa)
- Sep 04 9:49 AM ET