Secretary General Kurt Waldheim said Friday that it is “regrettable” that Israel decided not to attend the Security Council Mideast debate, scheduled to open tomorrow, but expressed the hope that the meeting will make a “positive contribution” to solutions in the Mideast. Israel decided to boycott the Council debate after the Palestine Liberation Organization was invited to participate.
Addressing a press conference here, Waldheim said that it would be premature to predict the outcome of the upcoming meeting, expected to last for about a week, but added that his impression was that it is not going to be. “an acrimonious debate” and that the problem of the Palestinians will be the dominant issue. He noted the Security Council Resolution 242 refers to the Palestinians as refugees and therefore is treating the Palestinian problem as a humanitarian one, not political. Thus, he observed, the discussions in the Security Council will be centered on the Palestinians from a political point of view.
Asked if Israel’s absence from the debate might hamper the Council in solving the Arab-Israeli conflict, Waldheim noted that although Syria was not present at the Geneva conference talks took place. But the Secretary General said that “we should not expect that the Security Council would solve the conflict in one session.” He said he does not exclude the possibility that the Geneva conference will be resumed, but that all depends “on the outcome of the Security Council.”
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