UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -- Delegates from around the world gathered in New York on Monday for the start of month-long UN-hosted negotiations to hammer out the first binding treaty to regulate the global weapons market, valued at more than $60 billion a year.
But in a foreshadowing of the kinds of difficulties that may dog the July 2-27 negotiations, a dispute over the status of the Palestinian delegation delayed the official start of the talks, UN diplomats said.
The treaty-drafting conference ran into difficulties at the outset when Egypt demanded that the Palestinian delegation have the status of a state, not merely an observer as is usually the case at UN General Assembly meetings.
Brian Wood, international arms control and human rights manager at Amnesty International, told Reuters that if the Palestinians were granted status in the talks as a state, Israel and the United States would walk out, causing the negotiations to collapse.
He said delegates were working hard to work out a compromise. more
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