U.N. Can’t Agree on Definition of Terrorist

United Nations diplomats working on a comprehensive convention against terrorism have failed to resolve the key sticking point in negotiations: defining who is a terrorist.

The working group failed to meet a Friday deadline on agreement on three of the articles in the proposed convention: how to define terrorism, how far-reaching the new convention should be and whether certain actions should be exempt from being classified as terrorist acts, General Assembly spokesman Jan Fischer said.

Defining terrorism has been a stumbling block in the negotiations on the convention, designed to provide anti-terrorism measures and meld 12 international agreements into one.