US embassy cable - 05MADRID3650

UNCLAS MADRID 003650 
 
SIPDIS 
 
FOR IO/UNP - RAYMOND HOTZ 
FOR NEA/WE CLEMENTS AND HALL 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL, SP, UNGA 
SUBJECT: SPAIN'S RESPONSE TO DEMARCHE ON OPPOSING 
ANTI-ISRAEL BIAS 
 
REF: SECSTATE 188933 
 
1. (U) Poloff delivered reftel demarche to Juan Manuel 
Gonzalez de Linares, MFA Deputy Director General for the 
United Nations. He said that Spain would not support the 
resolutions renewing the mandate of committees mentioned in 
the demarche (Spain usually abstains), but voting against 
them would involve input from the DG for the Middle East, and 
he referred Poloff to his office. He said in any event that 
the UNSG in New York in September had ordered all the 
entities of the UN to revise their mandates in order to 
streamline operations, and he was interested to see how the 
resulting report to be produced by November 11th might affect 
these committees. 
 
2. (U) Polcouns followed up with MFA Director General for the 
Mediterranean, Near East and Africa Alvaro Iranzo, who said 
Spain does not support gratuitously anti-Israel resolutions, 
but that they did occasionally use their abstentions as 
leverage to send a signal to the Israeli government. He said 
Spain usually followed EU consensus in such cases. However, 
Iranzo took reftel talking points and said he would consider 
the USG request. 
AGUIRRE