Washington, February 11: The United States says it will use its full power to block a United Nations resolution condemning Israel’s illegal settlements, a US diplomat says.
“We have made very clear that we do not think the Security Council is the right place to engage on these issues,” and that the US will use “tools that we have” to block any resolution, AFP quoted Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg as telling the House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday.
He said that the US, a veto-wielding permanent UN Security Council member, has gained some success at least for the present time. “And we will continue to employ the tools” so that the resolution is not passed, he said.
The UN resolution condemns the illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem), saying that the illegal move violates international law.
The expansion of the illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian land is considered as the main obstacle to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Palestinians have repeatedly said that they would not resume talks till Tel Aviv stops the illegal settlement activity in the occupied territories captured by Israel during 1967 war.
Palestinians have rejected US-brokered Middle East talks since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to extend a settlement moratorium that expired on September 28, 2010.
Arab nations recently submitted a draft resolution demanding that the UN pressure Tel Aviv to freeze all settlement construction. Some 122 countries have co-sponsored the resolution. Notably absent from that list, however, are Western countries such as the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Canada.
Steinberg also told the lawmakers that Washington was making a vigorous diplomatic campaign to stop countries from declaring their recognition of an independent Palestinian state, as several Latin American nations have done.
——-Agencies