UNITED NATIONS, April 30: UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urged the Security Council on Wednesday to end the isolation of Iraq and give the United Nations the means to play a clear and coherent part in rebuilding the country.
Speaking at a public session, Annan in effect called on the council to lift the crippling economic sanctions it imposed on Iraq after the invasion of Kuwait in August 1990.
He later told reporters “there is no doubt that the sanctions will have to be lifted and the oil-for-food programme will have to be phased out,” but said it was for the council to decide when and how.
Asked whether sanctions should be lifted by June 3, when the current phase of the programme expires, he replied: “There are inter-related issues which the council will have to discuss. I don’t think one can pick an arbitrary date.”
The council is split over US President George W. Bush’s demand that it lift sanctions to mark the “liberation” of Iraq by US and British troops.
Critics, notably France and Russia, say that would give post facto justification for a war which the council did not authorize.
Diplomats say Russia is also worried that it could lose valuable contracts when the 10-billion-dollar-a-year oil-for-food programme is ended and the Iraqi economy opens to normal trading.
Annan said the council “has the chance to leave behind earlier disagreements and find unity of purpose in the post-war phase.”
He said he hoped members would agree “on the need to put an end to Iraq’s isolation and help the people of Iraq, as quickly as possible, to establish the conditions of normal life.”
The United States and its opponents disagree also on the extent to which the United Nations should help rebuild Iraq, in particular the influence it should have over a post-war government.
While he refrained from suggesting what role the UN should play, Annan told the council that any mandate it gave the UN should be “clear, coherent and matched by the necessary resources.”
The president of the UN General Assembly, Jan Kavan, was more explicit.
“The role of the UN in Iraq should not, I think, be confined only to an advisory role or the provision of humanitarian or economic aid,” he said.
“There should be broader responsibilities aimed at promoting democracy in Iraq and they should become part of any planning process.”
Annan later told reporters the UN should not be responsible for security in post-war Iraq. “I don’t think the UN would want to take on that,” he said.
But he said he hoped the political contacts which the United States has encouraged inside Iraq with a view to producing a new leadership would “open up to a broader process.”
He hoped it would “also eventually include the drafting of a new constitution and the holding of elections... and hopefully the UN will have a role to play.”
Kavan said it was “in the clear interest of both the United Nations and the US authorities ... to find a unity of purpose or reach a working agreement” on how to cooperate in rebuilding Iraq.
It is extremely rare for the assembly president to address the Security Council. Wednesday’s public session was held to take stock of the work of the council in April under the presidency of Mexico. Pakistan takes over the presidency on May 1.
The stated theme of the meeting was the council’s role in conflict resolution. Most speakers steered clear of the controversy over Iraq.
On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin told British Prime Minister Tony Blair at a joint news conference outside Moscow that sanctions could be removed only when UN arms inspectors certified that Iraq was free of weapons of mass destruction.
In his speech, Annan avoided engaging in the controversy over the weapons inspections, saying only that the council would have “important decisions” to take in the coming weeks.
But he later said: “It is my hope that at some point in the future, UNMOVIC and the IAEA inspectors will be able to continue their work and perhaps cooperate with the efforts the US troops have made” in unearthing Iraqi weapons. —AFP