United Nations

                                                                        GA/AB/3623
                                                                                    28 May 2004

Fifth Committee Hears Introduction of Draft Resolution on Financing for UN Force in Lebanon

NEW YORK, 27 May (UN Headquarters) -- In a brief meeting this morning, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) heard the introduction of a draft resolution that would provide financing for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) from 1 July 2004 to 30 June 2005.

The draft resolution was introduced by the representative of Qatar on behalf of the “Group of 77” developing countries and China.

Reporting to the Committee about the outcome of informal consultations on the text (document A/C.5/57/L.81), Guillermo Kendall (Argentina) said that, regrettably, agreement could not been reached on the draft resolution, therefore, a consensus text could not be presented to the Committee.

[The Committee’s practice is to adopt texts by consensus, but for several years the resolution on UNIFIL has required a vote.  In several prior resolutions on UNIFIL -- the latest being resolution 57/325 -- the Assembly had requested Israel to pay for the damage resulting from the incident at the Mission’s headquarters at Qana on 18 April 1996.  By the text introduced today, the Assembly would express its deep concern that Israel did not comply with those texts and stress once again that it should strictly abide by General Assembly resolutions.]

Action on the text will be taken at a time and date to be announced in the Journal.

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