NZ should not join boycott - Greens

The Green Party is urging the Government to attend next week's UN conference on racism and says a boycott would be ironic just as Helen Clark takes up an important position at the world body.

The Geneva conference is in trouble because of intense sensitivity about Israel and Arab states. The last UN meeting called to condemn racism ended in chaos when Muslim delegates tried to insert language into a declaration defining Zionism as racist.

The US walked out of that conference in 2001 and will not attend next week despite a draft declaration which does not mention Israel, the Middle East or any other divisive issues.

Foreign Minister Murray McCully said yesterday the Government was considering the situation.

"It could go either way at this stage ... the Canadians are out, the US is out, it's quite possible that New Zealand will withdraw," he said on TV One's Q&A programme.

Australia has also said it would not participate.

Green Party MP Keith Locke said he strongly opposed New Zealand joining a US boycott of the conference.

"It would be highly ironic if just as we are farewelling Helen Clark to head up a major UN agency, we boycotted a key UN meeting at the behest of the United States."

Former prime minister Clark has been appointed head of the UN Development Programme and has left for New York. Locke said there was a large degree of consensus around the revised text of the draft declaration to be discussed at the conference.

"It [New Zealand] should not shy away just because the US considers the amended document to be still too biased against Israel," he said.

- NZPA, Reuters