United Nations: The United Nations Security Council, on which the United Kingdom has one of five permanent seats, condemned "without reservation" yesterday's bomb attacks in London.
An emergency meeting of ambassadors in New York was called by Greece's Adamantios Vassilakis, the council president for July. The 15-member body passed a resolution deploring the bomb attacks.
The Security Council "condemns without reservation the terrorist attacks in London on July 7, 2005 and regards any act of terrorism as a threat to peace and security," said the resolution, drafted by Britain. It urged all nations "to co-operate actively in efforts to find and bring to justice the perpetrators, organisers and sponsors of these barbaric acts".
"It is a horrible day," British ambassador Emyr Jones Parry told reporters as he arrived at the council chamber, his voice wavering. Noting the attack took place a day after Londoners heard they had won the 2012 Olympic Games bid, he said: "London should have woken up to joy and it woke up to tragedy. That's the reality."
In a separate statement, Mr Vassilakis said it was important to send a strong message "against those who have committed these unjustifiable crimes".
The UN security council passed similar resolutions in the past, condemning attacks on the US in 2001 and Madrid in 2003.
Extra security guards were called into UN headquarters in New York, and patrols were stepped up as the world body has been the target of past threats from the al-Qaeda network.
UN secretary general Kofi Annan, in his own statement, said: "I was devastated by the atrocious bombing that struck London today. These vicious acts have cut us all to the core. Today, the world stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the British people who, with others around the world, had mobilised so powerfully against poverty and climate change ahead of the Group of Eight summit." He left London for the meeting just before the blasts.
Anne Patterson, acting US ambassador, said the world body should "re-energise" a terrorism treaty held up in the UN General Assembly because of a dispute over how to define a terrorist.
Some nations argued that one country's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. But Algeria's UN ambassador, Abdallah Balli, said members should not get bogged down in definitions, especially after the London attack.