New Zealand, Venezuela, Malaysia and Senegal have told Egypt that if it did not clarify by midnight whether it planned to call a vote on a draft UN Security Council resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlements, then they reserved the right to move ahead with the text, diplomats said.
"In the event that Egypt decides that it cannot proceed to call for vote on 23 December or does not provide a response by the deadline, those delegations reserve the right to table the draft ... and proceed to put it to vote ASAP," the four council members said in a note to Egypt, seen by Reuters.
The Palestinians were also a party to the note, which said "there was a strong sense of disappointment" that the 15-member Security Council had not voted on the text as planned on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the Israeli government asked President-elect Donald Trump to apply pressure to avert Security Council approval of the settlements resolution after it learned the Obama administration intended to allow the measure to pass, a senior Israeli official told Reuters on Thursday.
Israeli officials contacted Trump's transition team at a "high level" after failing to persuade US officials to veto the draft resolution and asked him to intervene, the official said. Two Western officials said that US President Barack Obama had intended to abstain from the vote.
The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has had an acrimonious relationship with Obama, believes the Obama administration had long planned the council vote in coordination with the Palestinians. "It was a violation of a core commitment to protect Israel at the UN," the official said.
