The Palestine Liberation Organization has been accepted into the United Nations Economic Commission for Western Asia (ECWA), thus making it the first non-state to become a full member of a UN body.
The action took place here Friday when the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), of which ECWA is a subsidiary, voted 27-11 to accept the PLO. The resolution, introduced by Pakistan, was voted through mostly by Arab, East European and African countries. The United States and the Western European nations opposed it. There were 12 abstentions, mostly by Latin American countries, including Mexico. Argentina did not participate in the vote. ECWA is one of several regional bodies answerable to ECOSOC.
Melissa Wells, the U.S. ECOSOC delegate, told the Council before the vote that the move would complicate Middle East peace efforts. Theodor Meron, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, who attended the ECOSOC meeting as an observer, assailed the acceptance of the PLO into ECWA as “a clear breach of the Charter and of the law of the United Nations”. The Council, he warned, was “opening a Pandora’s box to all future claimants”. The ECOSOC resolution amended ECWA’s framework which had allowed only UN member states to join.
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