(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-12-01 11:04

United Nations - In an about face, the United States on Friday withdrew a UN resolution endorsing this week's agreement by Israeli and Palestinian leaders to try to reach a Mideast peace settlement by the end of 2008, apparently after Israel objected.

US President George W. Bush, joined by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (L) and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, makes a statement on the Annapolis Conference in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington November 28, 2007. [Agencies]

US Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff informed the Security Council that the United States was pulling the resolution from consideration less than 24 hours after US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad introduced it.

Khalilzad had said he needed to consult with the Israelis and Palestinians on the text of the resolution to ensure that it was what they wanted following the decisions by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at the Mideast peace conference in Annapolis, Md.

Wolff said the US had held intensive consultations in the past few days "and the upshot was that there were some unease with the idea" of a resolution.

Diplomats said Israel, a close US ally, did not want a resolution, which would bring the Security Council into the fledgling negotiations with the Palestinians. The diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said Khalilzad introduced the draft resolution without getting broad support from the Israelis, Palestinians and the Bush administration.

"It's not the proper venue," Israel's deputy ambassador Daniel Carmon said after Friday's council meeting. "We feel that the appreciation of Annapolis has other means of being expressed than in a resolution.

"We were not the only ones to object," Carmon said.

He added that the Americans had told the Israelis that the Palestinians also objected.

Abbas, speaking to reporters in the Tunisian capital, Tunis, said Friday that while he didn't know the details of the draft resolution it was a sign of the seriousness of the United States, which he also perceived at the Annapolis conference.

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