UN official quits amid pressure
UN official Rima Khalaf announced her resignation on Friday, saying the secretary general had asked her to withdraw a report in which she accused Israel of being an "apartheid state".
UN chief Antonio Guterres accepted the resignation of Khalaf, a Jordanian national, his spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York, while denying that the secretary general had acted under US pressure.
Khalaf, under-secretary general and executive secretary at the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), told a news conference: "The secretary general asked me yesterday morning to withdraw (the report).
"I asked him to rethink his decision, he insisted, so I submitted my resignation from the UN.
On Wednesday, the United States demanded that Guterres withdraw an ESCWA report entitled "Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid".
The report concluded that "available evidence established beyond a reasonable doubt that Israel is guilty of policies and practices that constitute the crime of apartheid".
Israel's UN envoy Danny Danon and Washington's ambassador to the world body, Nikki Haley, welcomed Khalaf's resignation.
"Anti-Israel activists do not belong in the UN," Danon said.
"Her removal from the UN is long overdue," he added.
Haley in a statement said: "When someone issues a false and defamatory report in the name of the UN, it is appropriate that the person resign.
Comments