WASHINGTON, Dec 21 (AFP) - The United States denied Tuesday opposing publication of a UN-commissioned report on the Arab world, whose authors said Washington had objected strongly to passages on Israel and the Iraq war.
"We have not seen a draft of the forthcoming UN Arab Human Development Report," Lou Fintor, a State Department spokesman, told AFP. "We have not urged 'deferral' of the report as alleged."
The text, commissioned by the United Nations Development Program as the third annual report on developments in the Arab world, was initially to have been published in October.
But its chief author said Tuesday that as a result of pressure from the United States and Egypt the document would be published only in January and not as an official UNDP report.
Another member of the team said the United States objected to the condemnation of Israeli practices in the Palestinian territories and a passage on the implication of the US occupation of Iraq for freedoms in the Arab world.
But Fintor said that since US officials had not seen a draft, "We do not know what it will say about the US or any other country."
He said Washington welcomed both the 2002 and 2003 Arab Human Development Reports although it did have concerns about what he called "some unfounded criticism of US policy" in last year's document.
"We shared those concerns after the 2003 report was released," he said.
12/21/2004 22:44 GMT - AFP