GENERAL ASSEMBLY, ACTING ON BUDGET COMMITTEE"S REPORTS, APPROVES SOME $1.67 BILLION IN RESOURCES FOR PEACEKEEPING

Press Release
GA/9726/

GENERAL ASSEMBLY, ACTING ON BUDGET COMMITTEE’S REPORTS, APPROVES SOME $1.67 BILLION IN RESOURCES FOR PEACEKEEPING

Assembly Observes Minute of Silence for President Al-Assad Of Syria; Text on UNIFIL Adopted by Recorded Vote of 110-2-0

CORRECTION

On page 12 of Press Release GA/9726 issued 15 June, the statement of Lebanon was inadvertently omitted. It should have followed the statement by the United States and should read, as follows:

HOUSSAM DIAB (Lebanon), speaking in explanation of vote, said that the resolution just passed on the financing of UNIFIL confirmed that it was the responsibility of the occupying State, Israel, to fulfil its obligations under international law. Lebanon's position was based on the need for the aggressor State, Israel, to assume full responsibility for its acts of aggression against Lebanon, especially since that aggression was deliberate and targetted the United Nations. Israel had ignored General Assembly resolutions 51/233, 52/237 and 53/227, which had determined its responsibility for the aggression. Today, the Assembly had again demonstrated that, for the financing of peacekeeping operations, financial responsibility went hand in hand with responsibility for human rights, the sanctity of the peacekeeping mission, and the responsibility for assuring a mission's safety.

The UNIFIL was another success story for peacekeeping, he said. Peacekeeping and national resistance had proven to be two fundamental prerequisites for liberation from occupation -– a right that was enshrined in the United Nations Charter. Lebanon had full confidence in the Secretary-General's ability to ensure that the resolution would be fully implemented. It would continue to monitor the situation, and hoped that the next performance report on UNIFIL would report implementation of the resolution.

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