At
UN, Closed
Meeting on G20
Trumps Saudi
Draft on
Syria, Qatar
Out in
Force
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, July
31, updated
with draft
-- When Saudi
Arabia's
Permanent
Representative
hosted an
"informal
consultation"
on his draft
General
Assembly
resolution on
Syria on
Tuesday
afternoon,
those who came
were mostly
political
coordinators:
for example
those of
Security
Council
members India
and South
Africa, which
took different
positions on
the UK Council
draft that
failed on July
19.
The
Permanent
Representative
of Qatar
arrived, with
body guard,
who
waited outside
with a Turkish
guard as well.
Algeria's Perm
Rep,
chair of the
Group of 77,
attended.
Russia did not
sent Vitaly
Churkin or his
deputy
Alexander
Pankin but
rather the
affable Nikita
Zhukov. Inner
City Press
asked him, Any
amendments? He
laughed.
Here
is the draft
Saudi Arabia
distributed,
put online by
Inner City
Press.
Update
of 4:23 pm --
sources in the
meeting say
that not only
did Russia say
it will vote
again, and
urge others to
do so, but
that other
BRICSA, not
coordinated,
spoke against
the draft and
"taking
sides," or
siding with
the Arab
League. Game
on, they said.
On the other
side, while
acknowledging
they won't get
137 votes, the
proponents
expect at
least 100.
We'll see.
While
the UK expert
attended the
understandably
closed door
session on
Syria, UK
Permanent
Representative
Mark Lyall
Grant was on
the other
side of the
North Lawn
building
listening to
Ban Ki-moon's
briefing
about the G20
in Los Cabos.
The
reason? The UK
co-chairs
Ban's
post-2015 MDGs
group, about
which some
new
announcements
were promised.
While this
might be the
pretext for
closing to the
press and
public a
meeting about
the
environment,
it
is a pretext
growing
thinner.
Libya's
Ibrahim
Dabbashi, too,
passed by the
Syria meeting
telling Inner
City
Press, I am
not involved
in that. He
went into the
G20 meeting,
which
was kicked off
by the Qatari
President of
the GA. So
Qatar had its
impact on both
sides of the
North Lawn
building.
Qatar's
Permanent
Representative
left the Syria
meeting, with
bodyguard, at
3:58.
, 
