Egypt calls for promoting UN-IPU cooperation

"Egypt attaches special importance to enhancing cooperation between the United Nations (UN) and the Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU), namely the interaction between governments and peoples," Egypt's Permanent Delegate to the UN Ambassador Ahmed Abul-Gheit said.

In a statement to the General Assembly Wednesday night, during debates on UN-IPU cooperation, he said that the IPU resolutions are a real mirror of the people's aspirations, adding that the UN should thus study and consider these resolutions.

He referred in this respect to the latest IPU conference in October, where some 1,000 parliamentarians denounced the provocative visit by Israeli opposition right wing leader Ariel Sharon to the Islamic sanctities that sparked off one of the gravest waves of violence in years on Palestinian lands.

"The same resolution also strongly repudiated the Israeli violence and military practices to quell the Palestinian uprising," he expounded.

"On the other hand, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat will post the UNSC during a special session to be held on Friday on the latest developments in the Palestinian lands and a Palestinian demand of international protection," Abul-Gheit told Sawt Al-Arab Radio Thursday over the telephone from New York.

"There is a great development in the organization's handling of the Palestinian issue as well as a commitment on the part of the UN Security Council and General Assembly to address this issue," he said.

"The Palestinian demand, internationally supported, calls for dispatching an international military force to provide protection for the Palestinians," he stressed.

"The would-be force will be deployed in areas under Israeli occupation ;a task that would facilitate movement among Palestinian towns and protect Palestinians against Israeli gunfire," he concluded.