Red Cross votes on Israeli, Palestinian membership

GENEVA, June 22 (Reuters) Talks on admitting Israeli and Palestinian relief agencies into the Red Cross humanitarian movement stretched into the early hours of today after countries struggled to agree on a deal.

Political tensions marred the two-day meeting of 192 countries and 183 national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, upsetting host Switzerland's hopes for a smooth conclusion to the decades-old struggle to win accession for the groups.

''There was no consensus,'' said Ian Piper, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross.

A decision on the accession of Israel's Magen David Atom and the Palestine Red Crescent to the international network -- which makes up the world's largest relief agency -- was expected to be finalised early on Thursday after a lengthy vote.

Participants in the closed-door talks said the conference was delayed after Muslim countries raised legal and procedural concerns to challenge a December pact that had cleared the way to the agencies' entry.

Tunisia and Pakistan proposed changing the deal to identify occupied lands including East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights as under the jurisdiction of their respective Arab relief societies -- an amendment unacceptable to Israel.

The advocacy group U.N. Watch said representatives from Saudi Arabia and Iran were among those who criticised Magen David Atom as a discriminatory or rights-violating group and sought to hold up its admission during the session.

''It is tragic that a conference with purely humanitarian purposes should be put at risk by politics and rhetorical point-scoring,'' U.N. Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer said in a statement.

Magen David Atom has been trying to join the international network for nearly 60 years, but has resisted using the cross and crescent on its emergency vehicles because of their association with Christianity and Islam.

The new diamond-shaped symbol, called the ''red crystal,'' was endorsed at a diplomatic meeting of the Geneva Conventions' signatory states in December, but needed formal approval by the full conference to become official.

If delegates agree to change the movement's statutes to include the crystal alongside the cross and crescent -- a move requiring a two-thirds majority vote -- the Israeli agency could use the emblem on its ambulances, with the Star of David inside.

Other national societies could also use the red crystal logo in environments where the more neutral symbol was appropriate.

Despite the laboured process, diplomats involved in the Geneva talks said they believed the conference would ultimately adopt the crystal symbol and proceed with formally admitting the Israeli and Palestinian agencies as members.

REUTERS VJ BST0534