Britain said Wednesday it would put a draft resolution to the Security Council designed to break the deadlock over a Palestinian request for 2,000 unarmed UN observers.
"My government does not want to leave the council with only one alternative that is not going to go anywhere," Britain's ambassador to the United Nations, Jeremy Greenstock, told reporters.
He said most council members agreed that "a neutral, third-party presence would have a de-escalatory impact" in the Palestinian territories.
More than 300 people, the great majority of them stone-throwing Palestinians, have been killed in nine weeks of clashes with Israeli soldiers.
Greenstock did not go into details, but British diplomats said the draft resolution would likely endorse the general principle of an international presence in the territories without giving it a size or mandate.
The council was due to resume its consultations on Thursday afternoon.
Greenstock was talking to reporters after the 15 council members held private consultations on a text submitted by Mali on behalf of the caucus of non-aligned member (NAM) states.
The text would set up a mobile force of "approximately 2,000 unarmed military observers" to protect Palestinian civilians living under Israeli occupation.
"The majority of council members want to see an alternative to the NAM draft because it is impractical," Greenstock said.
Israel has continually expressed its opposition to any international presence, saying it prefers to deal with the Palestinians through direct, bilateral negotiations.
The United States, one of five countries with a permanent seat on the council and a power of veto over its decisions, has said it will not accept any resolution that is unacceptable to Israel.
A senior US diplomat, Ambassador Nancy Soderberg, said Greenstock's proposals, which had French backing, were "a more constructive way of approaching the problem, but the details are unknown at this stage."
British diplomats said the draft would probably ask UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to make recommendations about the size and structure of the presence.
Annan is already holding consultations with the Israelis and the Palestinians at the request of the council.
Nasser al-Kidwa, Palestinian observer to the United Nations, told reporters: "Our bottom line is for this council to decide to establish such force; we have no problem then to give a broad mandate to the secretary general to work out all tactical and technical aspects."
But he insisted on a United Nations presence.
"As long as we are talking about UN observers, blue helmets, you can call them all kind of adjectives: neutral, beautiful, handsome, anything," he said – UNITED NATIONS (AFP)
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