13 December 2019<\/p>\n
The following is a near\u2011verbatim transcript of today\u2019s noon briefing by Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary\u2011General.<\/p>\n
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Questions and Answers<\/u><\/p>\n
\/…<\/p>\n
Question<\/u>:\u00a0 Thank you, Farhan.\u00a0 Today the new mandate of UNRWA\u00a0(United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) adopted at the General Assembly, subsequent to the committee last month, but still that the UNRWA is facing\u2026 there’s some issue of lack of the budget and also governance.\u00a0 So, is there any comment from the Secretary\u2011General to today’s\u2026 the adoption of the UNRWA mandate?<\/p>\n
Deputy Spokesman<\/u>:\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 We, of course, are encouraged by any of the support that the Member States have been providing to the UN Relief and Works Agency.\u00a0 We want to make sure that UNRWA continues both to be supported in its mandate and fully funded in its operations.<\/p>\n
As you know, in recent years, we have had to struggle a bit to make sure that UNRWA can meet its commitments to ensure the quality of the assistance it provides, including education, health and other services for Palestine refugees throughout the region.\u00a0 And, as a result, we do need continued strong funding from the Member States, and we’re thankful for the support we’ve received that has allowed UNRWA to carry out its activities over these recent years.<\/p>\n
Yes, Abdelhamid?<\/p>\n
Question<\/u>:\u00a0 Thank you, Farhan.\u00a0 Israel recently decided to build a new settlement enclave in the heart of the Palestinian city of Hebron.\u00a0 Other than the traditional position of the UN about the illegality of settlement, anything to comment on this very\u2026 on this act?\u00a0 Because it’s like\u2026 it’s a challenge to about 350,000\u00a0Palestinian living in the city of Hebron.<\/p>\n
Deputy Spokesman<\/u>:\u00a0 Well, from our standpoint, of course, all settlement activities are unhelpful to the process that’s on the ground and especially towards the prospects of a two\u2011state solution.\u00a0 We want to make sure that any settlement activity is forestalled in order to allow the peace process to move forward.\u00a0 And in a place like Hebron, it is particularly crucial, given the population there.<\/p>\n
Question<\/u>:\u00a0 But there is no peace process anyhow.\u00a0 I mean\u2026<\/p>\n
Deputy Spokesman<\/u>:\u00a0 We continue\u2026<\/p>\n
Question<\/u>:\u00a0 Why there’s no clear position from [Nickolay] Mladenov about this decision recently taken by Israel?<\/p>\n
Deputy Spokesman<\/u>:\u00a0 Mr.\u00a0Mladenov has been very clear about where he stands on the question of settlements, and he has expressed it both in what he says on the ground and in his regular briefings to the Security Council.\u00a0 And as you know, I believe he will have another one of those briefings in the coming week or so.<\/p>\n
The bottom line is we want to make sure that we can bring the parties together, and any steps like this are unhelpful to those efforts.<\/p>\n
\/…<\/p>\n
For information media. Not an official record.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 13 December 2019 The following is a near\u2011verbatim transcript of today\u2019s noon briefing by Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary\u2011General. \/… Questions and Answers \/… Question:\u00a0 Thank you, Farhan.\u00a0 Today the new mandate of UNRWA\u00a0(United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) adopted at the General Assembly, subsequent to […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":172,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"template-page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[],"document-category":[2573],"document-source":[5352,6169,1817,1877],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[1945,2013,1745,2137],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[6542],"class_list":["post-227459","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","document-category-highlights-of-the-noon-briefing","document-source-secretary-general","document-source-united-nations-department-of-global-communications","document-source-united-nations-relief-and-works-agency-for-palestine-refugees-in-the-near-east-unrwa","document-source-united-nations-special-coordinator-for-the-middle-east-peace-process-unsco","document-subject-assistance","document-subject-hebron","document-subject-refugees-and-displaced-persons","document-subject-settlements","entity-united-nations-system","document-language-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/227459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/227459\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=227459"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=227459"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=227459"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=227459"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=227459"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=227459"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=227459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}