UNITED NATIONS, July 15: UN Special Representative to Iraq Ashraf Jehangir Qazi held his first meeting with UN officials on Wednesday at the United Nations Headquarters in New York after being named to the post on Monday.
Mr Qazi was briefed by the UN staff about his responsibilities, a UN spokesperson said, confirming also that he would be shuttling between New York and Washington, DC, for the next couple of weeks.
Mr Qazi told reporters after the briefing that everyone was concerned about security in Iraq, but he was looking forward to being the top UN representative in the nation despite the dangers.
"It's a challenge, it's exciting, and I think the sense of gratification one would have in achieving one's purposes here would be unparalled," Mr Qazi said. He said the United Nations' role in Iraq was "critically important" and he wanted to contribute to implementing its mission, which was initially to help Iraq's interim government prepare for elections by Jan 31 and draft a new constitution.
"There's going to be an election. There's going to be a constitution, and there are going to be elections under the constitution, and I hope I can make a reasonable contribution to the successful completion of that process," he said.
Responding to press questions, spokesperson Marie Okabe said Secretary-General Kofi Annan wanted to send Mr Qazi to Iraq as quickly as possible, and predicted that Mr Qazi should be able to deploy with a small team by late July or early August.
She said the exact timetable for the new envoy's deployment would depend on an overall security environment in Iraq and on necessary arrangements for appropriate facilities and security arrangements with the multinational force, which still needed to be finalized.
Mr Qazi's predecessor, Sergio Vieira de Mello, was killed along with 21 others when terrorists attacked the UN headquarters in Baghdad last August. Once the team is on the ground, Ms Okabe said, its work would include "supporting Iraqis in their political process, and one of the first steps in that direction would be holding of a national conference."
In a separate development, the International Advisory and Monitoring Board (IAMB) for Iraq, an audit oversight body dealing with the country's oil revenues, opened a meeting on Thursday in Washington at the headquarters of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The members of the Board expect to receive a finalized audit of the coalition-managed Development Fund for Iraq (DFI) from the accounting firm of KPMG covering the period from its inception to Dec 31, 2003.
