30 nations to negotiate UN summit action plan

The United States has submitted hundreds of proposed amendments to the 39-page draft currently on the table, and Russia, the Non-Aligned Movement (Nam) representing 116 mainly developing countries, and dozens of other countries have submitted hundreds more.

General Assembly President Jean Ping said the "core group" representing all regions and groups at the United Nations would start negotiations Monday and was prepared to work nights if need be to finalise a document by Sept. 2.

The text would then be submitted to the 191 member states on Sept. 6 for approval, and sent for translation into the UN's six official languages, he said. The summit is Sept. 14-16.

"We have to work hard, and we'll do everything in order to produce an outcome," Ping told reporters after a closed-door meeting of representatives from all countries.

The negotiators will be focusing on seven key issues where there are still serious differences:

Defining and tackling terrorism;

Disarmament and nonprolif-eration;

A new Human Rights Council to replace the discredited Human Rights Commission;

A new Peacebuilding Commis-sion to help countries emerging from conflict;

Overhauling UN management;

Taking collective action to protect people against genocide;

Actions to fight poverty and promote development.

But other issues can also be raised, and even though about 30 countries will be leading the negotiations, any other UN member state can step in with proposals during the negotiations, Ping said.

He said the key negotiators would include the five permanent Security Council members the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France as well as Malaysia, which heads the Nonaligned Movement, Japan, India, Pakistan and representatives from every region.

"I think we're making progress," US Ambassador John Bolton said. "We're prepared to be flexible on format and process. We want a strong outcome document."

He called the US agreement with the Non-Aligned Movement (Nam) that all governments should be able to contribute and that the entire text should be open "a good sign."

"We're very pleased about this," Bolton said. "We're moving ahead."