UN stresses timeframe for end to US occupation of Iraq
By Our Correspondent
UNITED NATIONS, July 22: “The day when Iraqis govern themselves must come quickly, and a clear timetable for the restoration of sovereignty with specific steps for the end of United States military occupation is essential if the growing impatience in the country is to be stemmed,” UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a report on Tuesday.
The report would be submitted to the Security Council at a time when the new Iraqi Governing Council members would also attend the session.
It enumerates the activities the UN will carry out in the current year in the areas of humanitarian assistance, facilitation of national dialogue and assistance with the electoral process and human rights to be coordinated under a new UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, which would have a staff strength of over 300.
It identifies other areas consistent with the Council resolution No 1483, adopted in May, where the UN can provide assistance, including the constitutional process, judicial and legal reforms, police training, demobilization and reintegration of former military forces, public administration, economic reconstruction and sustainable development, technical assistance and advisory services to Iraqi ministries.
“The challenge for the United Nations in Iraq is to find meaningful and effective ways to assist the Iraqi people in achieving their goals. Its aim is to help them participate in, and take ownership of, the definition of the policies and priorities that will shape the future of their country,” Mr Annan said in the report, which mandated the appointment of a special representative of the secretary-general.
The report is an initial assessment of the UN role since the special representative, Sergio Vieira de Mello, took up his post in early June.
Mr Annan said Mr De Mello had “conveyed to all concerned the Security Council’s resolve that the day when Iraqis govern themselves must come quickly, and he has stressed the Security Council’s call for a government based on the rule of law that affords equal rights and justice to all Iraqi citizens without regard to ethnicity, religion or gender.”
Welcoming the establishment last week of a Governing Council, Mr Annan said: “If some of the concerns that have been relayed to my special representative in these initial weeks of his mandate are to be allayed, and the growing impatience is to be stemmed, it is important that Iraqis are able to see a clear timetable leading to the full restoration of sovereignty. “There is a pressing need to set out a clear and specific sequence of events leading to the end of military occupation,” he added.
Talking to reporters on Monday, Mr Annan observed that the Governing Council had emerged out of extensive consultations with Iraqis and others and was broadly representative.
