Reply #8: Clashes at UN as talks fail to break resolution deadlock [View All]

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FRANCE and the United States clashed yesterday over a UN resolution calling for a truce in the Middle East, even as Israel began its push deeper into Lebanon.

President Chirac of France threatened that Paris would introduce its own proposal to the Security Council if the deadlock in talks with Washington was not broken.

“It does seem that there is an American reservation about adopting this draft,” M Chirac said after a meeting with members of his Cabinet in the south of France. “I can’t imagine that there would be no solution because that would mean . . . the most immoral result, that we accept the current situation and that we abandon an immediate ceasefire. I can’t imagine that of the Americans or anyone else.

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The deadlock caused the postponement of a meeting of foreign ministers in New York that Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, had tentatively scheduled for last night, before a UN vote. But John Bolton, the US Ambassador to the UN, said that he was still hoping for a vote this week. “We still would like to try to do that this week. We are in the process of non-stop meetings to do that,” he said.

TimesOnLine