Kirkpatrick Refuses to Meet with the PLO Representative at the UN

The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Jeane Kirkpatrick, who is currently President of the Security Council, turned down a request by the Palestine Liberation Organization observer, Zehdi Labib Terzi, for a meeting in her capacity as President of the Council. That fact was disclosed today by Terzi who addressed the Security Council debate on the situation on the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Terzi complained that “it was not fitting” that the President of the Security Council should refuse to meet with him when he asked for a meeting. He said Kirkpatrick should have had “the courage and the decency to honor” his request and accused her of not performing her duty as President of the Security Council.

Kirkpatrick, who presided at today’s meeting, did not respond to Terzi’s accusation during the debate. Sources here claimed that she maintained that since the PLO is not a member-state, she was not obliged, as President of the Security Council, to meet with its representative.

The Security Council, in a brief meeting here today, heard several speakers, Terzi among them. One speaker, Harry Ott of East Germany, said the Palestinian people are protesting the “prolonged occupation, (and) refusal of Israel to apply the Geneva Convention and the establishment of the civilion authority” in the occupied territories.

The representative of Iran, Said Rajaie-Khorassani, said the answer to the Palestinian problem “lay only in vigorously convincing the usurping agent that it could no longer count on the inactivity of the majority of the inhabitants of the occupied territories and that it could no longer impose tranquility on the area by means of military power.”

The Security Council adjourned without setting a date for continuation of the debate. Sources here said that no date was set for a vote because the Council members are deadlocked in their efforts to draft a resolution that would be acceptable to all members and especially avoid a U.S. veto.