U.N. headquarters in New York. Diplomats were working on an aid deal for Gaza. After nearly a week of intense negotiations, the United States said on Thursday night that it was ready to support a United Nations Security Council resolution that would call for more desperately needed aid to enter the Gaza Strip. A vote was not expected until Friday at the earliest. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters that the United States had “worked hard and diligently over the course of the past week” with the countries that had proposed the resolution, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, to ensure that “we put a mechanism on the ground that will support humanitarian assistance and we’re ready to vote for it.” “I won’t share how I will vote,” she said, but added that if the resolution were put forward as written, it would be one “we can support.” Earlier on Thursday, a U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the talks, said that high-level negotiators from Washington and Cairo had been seeking common ground on who would inspect the aid for weapons and other contraband before it entered Gaza. The draft text of the resolution that circulated before the ambassador spoke dropped a call for the “suspension of hostilities” from an earlier version, instead calling for “urgent steps” to allow unhindered humanitarian access and the creation of “conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities.” It also asks the U.N. secretary general to appoint a coordinator given the responsibility for “facilitating, coordinating, monitoring and verifying” that aid cargo is humanitarian in nature, who would also be “consulting all relevant parties.” The Security Council this week has repeatedly delayed a vote on the resolution amid concerns from the United States that […]
Click here to visit source. U.S. Says It’s Ready to Back U.N. Resolution to Allow More Aid Into Gaza