Subscribe to Print Edition | Mon., January 19, 2009 Tevet 23, 5769 | | Israel Time: 02:55 (EST+7)
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Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice embrace before a meeting in Tel Aviv in November.
Last update - 03:14 14/01/2009
U.S.: Olmert never asked us to abstain from UN vote on Gaza truce
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent and The Associated Press
Tags: Hamas, israel news 

The U.S. State Department on Tuesday flatly rejected an assertion by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that he had convinced the Bush administration to abstain from last week's United Nations resolution calling for an immediate truce in the Gaza Strip.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack also denied that the abstention embarrassed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.


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McCormack said the comments attributed to Olmert "are wholly inaccurate as to describing the situation, just 100-percent, totally, completely not true" and suggested that the Israeli government might want to clarify or correct the record.

Olmert said Monday that Rice had been embarrassed by orders from President George W. Bush to abstain from voting on the cease-fire resolution that she was negotiating. Olmert said he had called Bush - and interrupted him at an event in Philadelphia - to ensure the United States did not vote for it.

"I said: 'Get me President Bush on the phone,'" Olmert said in a speech in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon. "They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn't care: 'I need to talk to him now.' He got off the podium and spoke to me."

Olmert said he argued that the United States should not vote in favor of the resolution, and the president then called Rice and told her not to do so. "She was left pretty embarrassed," Olmert said.

McCormack, who pointed out that he was with Rice at the United Nations during the negotiations and vote, denied Olmert's characterization.

"She was not at all embarrassed or ashamed of the actions that we took," he told reporters. "Secretary Rice's recommendation and inclination ? the entire time ? was to abstain.... This idea that somehow she was turned around on this issue is 100-percent completely untrue."

Israel had argued that the Security Council measure calling for a halt to the Gaza fighting ? which passed Thursday in 14-0 vote with the U.S. abstaining ? was unworkable because it did not guarantee Israel's security.

The approved resolution called for "an immediate, durable and fully respected cease-fire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza."

After the vote, Rice said that the United States fully supported the resolution but abstained because it "thought it important to see the outcomes of the Egyptian mediation," referring to an Egyptian-French initiative aimed at achieving a cease-fire.

Still, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki said he had been surprised by the U.S. abstention.

"We were told that the Americans were going to vote in favor," he said Friday, a day after the vote.

But when Rice came in to the Security Council chamber, she informed the Saudi foreign minister with an apology that she would abstain and would clarify later that the U.S. supported the resolution nonetheless, according to Malki.

"What happened in the last 10 or 15 minutes, what kind of pressure she received, from whom, this is really something that maybe we will know about later," he said.
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  1.   Is This Denial Meant To Make Us Think.... 20:37  |  Yaakov Sullivan 13/01/09
  2.   for this alone olmert must go 20:42  |  pp 13/01/09
  3.   Olmert needs to be more circumspect, vene if it was true it. 20:46  |  r 13/01/09
  4.   Bush is the only one who can confirm it 22:58  |  innocent until guilt 13/01/09
  5.   Olmert, great PR man! 23:14  |  Victor 13/01/09
  6.   Both liars 23:45  |  alain 13/01/09
  7.   Imagine his lies on Gaza 23:48  |  Jim 13/01/09
  8.   stop playing around 00:58  |  MIke 14/01/09
  9.   Changes 01:49  |  Atoo 14/01/09
  10.   Thats gratitude for you 01:49  |  American Patriot 14/01/09
  11.   Get the Story Straight 01:54  |  Jack olson 14/01/09
  12.   olmert displaying stupidity 02:09  |  Walle 14/01/09
  13.   Who is lying 03:39  |  Baz Mann 14/01/09
  14.   I didn`t believe this yesterday when I first saw it 03:51  |  ghostoflutherblisset 14/01/09
  15.   Olmert vs Condi Rice 04:22  |  Joseph 14/01/09
  16.   It Doesn`t Matter Whether Or Not It`s True 04:53  |  massaraksh 14/01/09
  17.   Enough is enough 07:47  |  Aleister K. 14/01/09
  18.   Why Is Olmert still PM??? 20:15  |  Jew Lover 14/01/09
  19.   Aleister K 08:09  |  Urchin 15/01/09
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