BANGKOK, Dec 17 (AFP) - The United States backed down Tuesday from its hardline stance which threatened to derail a UN population conference, in the face of united opposition from 43 Asia-Pacific nations.
After days of angry debate, the US delegation finally dropped its demand for extensive amendments on the issues of abortion and adolescent sex in a resolution agreed by all the other delegations.
Instead, it registered its disapproval over sections of the text by calling for a vote -- virtually unprecedented at UN meetings which operate on consensus -- where it was the only dissenter.
UN and non-governmental organisations at the Fifth Asian and Pacific Population Conference hailed the result which they said showed regional nations sticking to their guns despite intense US pressure.
"This particular conference shows that the countries have acted independently, looking at their own laws and sovereignty and abiding by their own priorities," said UN Population Fund (UNFPA) chief Thoraya Obeid.
"Even though the US was the only dissenting voice in the meeting, it did join the consensus at the end".
The resolution agreed at the meeting largely reaffirmed a landmark agreement drawn up in Cairo in 1994 which called for universal access to reproductive health, reduction of maternal death and prevention of HIV-AIDS.
The US-based activist group Population Action International (PAI) praised the "perseverance, commitment and unified voice" of the delegations which reaffirmed the principles of the Cairo plan.
"They were met with roadblock after roadblock erected by the US delegation in its singular determination to export a domestic political agenda to a region thousands of miles away," it said.
Obeid has just done battle with the US administration which cut 34 million dollars in aid to the UNFPA after right-wing activists accused it of promoting abortion and forced sterilization in China, a charge the fund denied.
In Bangkok, the US had been pushing for the removal from the conference's resolution of terms like "reproductive rights" and "reproductive services" which it believes imply support for abortion.
It was also calling for the section on adolescent sexuality to put more of a focus on abstinence, which is its preferred policy.
Gladys Malayang from the Women's Health Care Foundation of the Philippines said the Philippine delegation came under "extreme pressure ... to come to the side of the US delegation."
"The US (has) all along sought to undermine and block the solidarity and unity of the Asian countries with which the Philippines stood."
US delegation chief Gene Dewey, assistant secretary of state for the bureau of population, refugees and migration, denied Thursday that the US was trying to abandon the Cairo agreement.
"There should be no inference drawn from the fact that everyone else seems to be very happy with the language -- and the US is trying to improve the language in some cases -- that we have a great gulf between us and the other representatives here who share the objectives that we share," he said.
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