Rice Overruled by Olmert on Ceasefire

Courtesy AFP/Getty

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Condoleezza Rice was ordered to abstain in a key UN vote on the Gaza war, Israeli PM Olmert said Monday.

“She was left shamed. A resolution that she prepared and arranged, and in the end she did not vote in favour,” Olmert said in a speech in the southern town of Ashkelon.

The UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for immediate ceasefire in the conflict in Gaza and an Israeli withdrawal.

14 of the council’s 15 members voted in favour of the resolution, which was later rejected by both Israel and Hamas.

“In the night between Thursday and Friday, when the secretary of state wanted to lead the vote on a ceasefire at the Security Council, we did not want her to vote in favor,” Olmert said

“I said ‘get me President Bush on the phone’. 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.

“I told him the United States could not vote in favour. It cannot vote in favour of such a resolution. He immediately called the secretary of state and told her not to vote in favour.”

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