From: Bereket Kidane (welela83@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Sep 11 2009 - 11:47:35 EDT
http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/0909/Obama_at_the_UN_Rice_previews.html
Foreign policy hands told POLITICO that recent word at the State Department is that five Africa nations would not be invited to the Obama-hosted luncheon for visiting sub-Saharan African heads of state. Among them, Zimbabwe, Sudan (whose president is the subject of an International Criminal Court war crimes indictment), Eritrea (which has moved to shut down a UN peacekeeping mission there), Niger, and Guinae. The White House and State Department have said they are not yet prepared to discuss who is not invited to Obama's Africa luncheon, and an administration source indicated the list may still be in flux. Rice also declined to get into specifics of the invite list.
OBAMA AT THE UN: RICE PREVIEWS
President Barack Obama will chair a meeting of the United Nations Security Council later this month, becoming the first U.S. president to do so, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said today.
In the two and a half days that POTUS plans to be in New York for events surrounding the opening session of the UN General Assembly starting September 21, Obama will address the UN General Assembly, followed, by dint of the alphabetical proximity of their last names, by Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi. Equally by dint of circumstance, the United States holds the rotating presidency of the 15-member UN Security Council this month, while Libya holds the presidency of the UN General Assembly.
Qaddafi, on his first visit to the U.S., has agreed to confine his activities to Manhattan, Rice indicated, and not to pitch his tent at Libyan-owned property in New Jersey. Obama will not provide any sort of introduction for Qaddafi, Rice indicated. The leaders will just speak sequentially.
Among other UNGA events, whose sometimes complicated diplomatic choreography Rice laid out at a breakfast for journalists hosted by the Christian Science Monitor today, Obama will speak at a UN Security Council summit on climate change, host a luncheon for visiting sub-Saharan African heads of state, as well as the traditional U.S. evening reception for world leaders -- to which Iran is not invited, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said yesterday.
Obama will also host a reception for some two dozen top contributing UN peacekeeper nations.
Among his most high priority activities will be chairing the UN summit on nonproliferation, which the Obama administration has set out as a top priority. The U.S. is hosting the meeting of the Non Proliferation Treaty review conference in the spring in Washington, Rice noted, as well as in the midst of strategic arms reductions treaty renewal negotiations with Russia and the convention banning the testing of nuclear weapons.
Rice demurred on questions about what kind of meetings may take place on the sidelines of the official UN activities, including as yet unconfirmed reports that Obama hopes to host a meeting of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in New York, at which the relaunch of peace negotiations may be announced. Middle East hands have also said in recent days that the Obama administration also hopes to enlist Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to speak at the Mideast peace talks announcement, to offer on behalf of some Arab states to show Israel some intermediate steps towards normalization of relations for the duration that Israel commits to freeze construction of new Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and pursues negotiations for establishing a Palestinian state.
Rice said that the so-called P5+1 group -- the permanent five members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany -- would be discussing the ongoing issue of Iran's nuclear program on the sidelines of the UN meetings, but did not indicate that new sanctions towards Iran would be a likely deliverable from the September gathering. The UN Security Council has already passed three sets of resolutions on Iran. It passed a new resolution against North Korea in June, the toughest UN sanctions regime yet, Rice noted.
Recent reporting suggests that the Obama administration with key allies plans to spend a couple weeks - into October - to test out the prospects for serious negotiations with Iran to get underway, or determine in October how to proceed on the sanctions front. Iran provided its formal response to the P5+1 group seeking negotiations on its nuclear program earlier this week. The U.S. and key allies have expressed the initial sense that the response doesn't speak to the major international concern with Iran, namely its nuclear program. But Security Council members Russia and China have both subsequently said they are not prepared to pursue harsher sanctions at this time in light of it. Key Congress members have indicated they will move to push through U.S. sanctions legislation next month targeting Iran's financial sector and its import of refined petroleum products. But it's unclear how effective such unilateral sanctions would be without UN-mandated
fuller international compliance.
Foreign policy hands told POLITICO that recent word at the State Department is that five Africa nations would not be invited to the Obama-hosted luncheon for visiting sub-Saharan African heads of state. Among them, Zimbabwe, Sudan (whose president is the subject of an International Criminal Court war crimes indictment), Eritrea (which has moved to shut down a UN peacekeeping mission there), Niger, and Guinae. The White House and State Department have said they are not yet prepared to discuss who is not invited to Obama's Africa luncheon, and an administration source indicated the list may still be in flux. Rice also declined to get into specifics of the invite list.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton plans to spend some ten days in Turtle Bay, aides say. On the last day of the month, Clinton will preside over a UN meeting where Rice says the Obama administration hopes to lead passage of a measure that would strengthen implementation of a UN resolution condemning sexual violence against women. Both Rice and Clinton have traveled to the Democratic Republic of Congo in May and August respectively where massive scale of rape is among the devastating weapons of warfare.