BEIRUT (AFP) – Jordanian UN official Rima Khalaf announced her resignation Friday, saying the secretary general had asked her to withdraw a report in which she accused Israel of being an “apartheid state”.
Khalaf, under-secretary general and executive secretary at the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), told a news conference: “The secretary general asked me yesterday morning to withdraw (the report). I asked him to rethink his decision, he insisted, so I submitted my resignation from the UN.”
Her resignation comes after the United States on Wednesday demanded that UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres withdraw an ESCWA report accusing Israel of imposing apartheid on the Palestinians.