26 JANUARY 2021<\/p>\n
The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today\u2019s noon briefing by St\u00e9phane Dujarric, Spokesman for the Secretary-General.<\/p>\n
\/…<\/p>\n
**Middle East<\/u><\/p>\n
Back here, at least virtually, Tor Wennesland\u00a0briefed<\/a>\u00a0the Security Council this morning for the first time in his new role as the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process.\u00a0 He told the members that Nickolay Mladenov\u2019s performance as Special Coordinator is a hard act to follow.<\/p>\n He added that he joins the Secretary-General in welcoming the presidential decree issued by President Mahmoud Abbas to hold legislative, presidential and Palestinian National Council elections this year.<\/p>\n Mr. Wennesland warned that the COVID-19 crisis continues to take a staggering toll across the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and Israel.\u00a0 Concerted efforts to contain and halt the spread of the virus have succeeded in lowering the overall number of active cases in the West Bank and Gaza.\u00a0 However, the cost in lives and livelihoods remains high, particularly in the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n In this context, he said, the UN continues to encourage Israel to help address the priority needs of the Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and to support COVID-19 vaccine availability more generally.<\/p>\n \/…<\/p>\n Questions and Answers<\/u><\/p>\n \/…<\/p>\n Question<\/u>:\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 I want to ask about the Middle East meeting today.\u00a0 Clearly, we heard from the new Special Coordinator, Mr. Wennesland, but we didn\u2019t hear his reaction to some of the things that happened later in the meeting.<\/p>\n So, first, what is the Secretary\u2011General\u2019s reaction to the fact that you now have a US Administration laying out its policy on Israel\u2011Palestine and it has now returned to the international norm of a two\u2011State solution, pretty much what is laid out in UN resolutions, which hasn\u2019t been the Administration\u2019s policy\u2026\u00a0 the previous Administration\u2019s policy for the last four years?<\/p>\n Spokesman<\/u>:\u00a0 Well, I mean, with\u2026\u00a0 I will say that we obviously welcome the US\u2019 renewed focus on international cooperation globally, and we will engage with the US on this and other issues.\u00a0 I mean, I\u2019m not going to get into\u2026\u00a0 I don\u2019t want\u2026\u00a0 we obviously welcome these comments, but I\u2019m not\u2026\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to get into the analysis of what each Member State said.\u00a0 We will\u2026\u00a0 we work with one Administration at a time, and we look forward to working with this Administration.<\/p>\n Question<\/u>:\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to get into an analysis of what each Member State said, but the Russian Foreign Minister made a new proposal, which was either an international conference or he suggested the idea of a ministerial meeting this summer with the Quartet plus a group of Arab countries, as well as Israel and Palestine.\u00a0 What is the\u2026\u00a0 what is the Secretariat\u2019s view\u2026?<\/p>\n Spokesman<\/u>:\u00a0 We will analyse the proposal.\u00a0 We\u2019ve always called for a renewal of the activities of the Quartet, which is something that we hope we will see.<\/p>\n Question<\/u>:\u00a0 Could a conference be helpful, an international conference?<\/p>\n Spokesman<\/u>:\u00a0 I think let\u2019s\u2026\u00a0 let me stay for there right now.\u00a0 Thank you.<\/p>\n \/…<\/p>\n Question<\/u>:\u00a0 Yeah, no, sorry.\u00a0 One other question about today\u2019s Security Council meeting, which was Mr. Wennesland said that he would like the Israelis to provide more help to Palestinians with regard to vaccinations.\u00a0 Does the UN believe it is an obligation of Israel as the occupying Power to start vaccinating those that are living in that occupied territory?<\/p>\n Spokesman<\/u>:\u00a0 Look, we\u2019ve had\u2026\u00a0 what I will say is that we\u2019re continuing to encourage the Israelis to help address the priority needs of Palestinians in the OPT, support the vaccine.\u00a0 I think this is critical to support of the broader efforts of the Palestinian Government to control the pandemic, also in line with Israel\u2019s obligation under international law.<\/p>\n I think it\u2019s also important to note that Israel has worked very closely with the UN and partners throughout the course of the pandemic to ensure that equipment and supplies have been delivered throughout the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza.\u00a0 And Palestine is also eligible for support through the COVAX facility and that we anticipate an initial allocation of vaccine batches to cover priority groups to be available in the first half of this year.<\/p>\n \/…<\/p>\n For information media. Not an official record.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 26 JANUARY 2021 The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today\u2019s noon briefing by St\u00e9phane Dujarric, Spokesman for the Secretary-General. \/… **Middle East Back here, at least virtually, Tor Wennesland\u00a0briefed\u00a0the Security Council this morning for the first time in his new role as the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process.\u00a0 He told […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":172,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"template-page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[897,1593,1074,2553],"document-category":[2573],"document-source":[2329,5352,1362,6169],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[2533,2577,1797,1638,2741],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[],"class_list":["post-245196","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","country-israel","country-palestine-state-of","country-russian-federation","country-united-states-of-america","document-category-highlights-of-the-noon-briefing","document-source-quartet","document-source-secretary-general","document-source-security-council","document-source-united-nations-department-of-global-communications","document-subject-health","document-subject-peace-conference","document-subject-peace-process","document-subject-quartet","document-subject-statehood-related","entity-united-nations-system"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/245196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/245196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=245196"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=245196"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=245196"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=245196"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=245196"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=245196"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=245196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}