Emergency UN meeting over Afghan issue sought

January 10, 1980

The Philippines and Mexico decided Wednesday to ask for an emergency meeting of the UN General Assembly on the Afghanistan situation, following the Security Council's failure to act because of a Soviet veto. A UN spokesman said delegates of the two states, which are both Council members, informed the Council President, Jacques Leprette of France, of their decision to move for an assembly debate. Their delegates were consulting other nonaligned members on the initiative, the spokesman said.

This would be undertaken under the so-called "United for Peace" procedure approved by the Security Council in 1950 to enable the UN to take peace-keeping action in the event of a veto.