Cablegate: Spain's Response to Demarche On Opposing

This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

181457Z Oct 05

UNCLAS MADRID 003650

SIPDIS

FOR IO/UNP - RAYMOND HOTZ
FOR NEA/WE CLEMENTS AND HALL

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL SP UNGA
SUBJECT: SPAIN'S RESPONSE TO DEMARCHE ON OPPOSING
ANTI-ISRAEL BIAS

REF: SECSTATE 188933

1. (U) Poloff delivered reftel demarche to Juan Manuel
Gonzalez de Linares, MFA Deputy Director General for the
United Nations. He said that Spain would not support the
resolutions renewing the mandate of committees mentioned in
the demarche (Spain usually abstains), but voting against
them would involve input from the DG for the Middle East, and
he referred Poloff to his office. He said in any event that
the UNSG in New York in September had ordered all the
entities of the UN to revise their mandates in order to
streamline operations, and he was interested to see how the
resulting report to be produced by November 11th might affect
these committees.

2. (U) Polcouns followed up with MFA Director General for the
Mediterranean, Near East and Africa Alvaro Iranzo, who said
Spain does not support gratuitously anti-Israel resolutions,
but that they did occasionally use their abstentions as
leverage to send a signal to the Israeli government. He said
Spain usually followed EU consensus in such cases. However,
Iranzo took reftel talking points and said he would consider
the USG request.
AGUIRRE

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