TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE BY SECRETARY-GENERAL KOFI ANNAN AND MEMBERS OF MISSION TO IRAQ AT UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS, ON 10 NOVEMBER

Press Release
SG/SM/6386

TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE BY SECRETARY-GENERAL KOFI ANNAN AND MEMBERS OF MISSION TO IRAQ AT UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS, ON 10 NOVEMBER

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. First of all, I think you all know the team here and I do not need to introduce Mr. Cárdenas, Mr. Brahimi and Mr. Eliasson, who went to Baghdad and got back here yesterday.

I acted last week in support of the Security Council in an attempt to resolve the stalemate on Iraq by sending this special mission to that country. My envoys, Mr. Brahimi, Mr. Cárdenas and Mr. Eliasson, have returned to New York after two days of consultations in Baghdad, and they briefed me last night.

I also met Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz today, and he reiterated the position of his Government and raised a number of grievances. I underscored the message my envoys had taken to Baghdad, stressing that all that needed to be done and all that was required was for Iraq to undertake to comply with its obligations under all relevant Security Council resolutions, but that once that was done, I would expect that the Security Council, in turn, would be prepared to listen to Iraq and to its grievances.

I believe that if this were to be done by Iraq, and the Council were to listen to them, they in effect would have obtained what they did ask the mission to do. They wanted a hearing; they have not had a hearing for a long time. I would hope that now that Mr. Tariq Aziz is here -- he has just arrived -- he did not give me the answer I had hoped for in Baghdad and he has not given it to me yet, but I hope that all is not lost and that there could be some room to manoeuvre and that, down the line, in the next day or so, we will have the right decisions taken.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary-General, Mr. Tariq Aziz -- is he expected to give you an answer within a certain amount of time before the Council acts on additional sanctions or calling this a breach of the ceasefire?

Secondly, if the Iraqis do not comply, do you think that they are in material breach of the ceasefire resolution?

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL: Let me, first of all, say that it is unusual for me to get involved in the operations of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM). It is a matter between Iraq and the Security Council. I became involved because I thought I should do whatever I can to try and defuse the situation, to try and de-escalate before things got out of hand.

I think down the line Iraq and the Security Council will have to resolve this issue, if my attempts to resolve the issue, my offer of a ladder, my offer to work with all concerned to defuse it, do not work: it will be between Iraq and the Security Council. As I said, Mr. Tariq Aziz is in town. He has not given me a different message yet, and if that were not to come it will now have to be direct dealings between Iraq and the Council.

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QUESTION: Are you concerned that this could not be resolved, this may not be resolved, and it may result in a violent outcome?

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL: That concern has always been there, and that was one of the reasons we sent the mission. QUESTION: The mission comes back optimistic or pessimistic?

Mr. BRAHIMI: As I said yesterday, we are diplomats, so as long as it is possible we will go on trying to find solutions. But I think the situation is extremely serious, and, with the Secretary-General's permission, I think my two colleagues and I told our Iraqi hosts that we very, very much hope that they return to the system, as Ambassador Cárdenas said, and work within the system. They have grievances. These grievances must be listened to and taken into account. But that can be done when they get into the system, not before.

QUESTION: Mr. Annan, you are talking about giving Iraq more time. What exactly did Mr. Aziz say to you? Did he indicate that they are still contemplating what to do? And what will your message be to the Security Council -— that it should hold off on action?

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL: No. First of all, it is not within my power to give more time or less time. That is a decision for the Security Council. This is a Security Council matter. I, as I said, got into this because I had wanted to defuse the situation. Now, the Council will have to decide what it does. When I say that Mr. Tariq Aziz has just arrived, and that he has not yet given me the answer I had hoped for, I am basically saying that maybe within the next day or so, or the next couple of -— I don't know. Can the Council wait? Will the Council be prepared to wait? I don't know, and I am not running the Council. I'm sorry.

QUESTION: Mr. Brahimi, if I may, what is the ultimate objective of Iraq, from your discussions with them? Do they want to break all relations with the United Nations? It seems as if they are looking for a fight. What is it they want, exactly?

Mr. BRAHIMI: Tariq Aziz is here, and you know he is a very eloquent man, and I'm sure he will tell you much better than I. But what they insisted on all the time is that they don't want a fight with the Security Council, they don't want a fight with the United Nations. They would like to comply. But they have problems. And they have told us what these problems are, and I think you are familiar with them. Mr. Tariq Aziz told this press conference all the problems they have, and that they think that these problems must be taken into consideration.

The very big problem, which is very visible to everybody, is, of course, the suffering of the Iraqi people, which is real. I think that has been reported and documented by the United Nations on several occasions.

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QUESTION: Mr. Brahimi, when Richard Butler took over earlier this year, one of the things he was saying was that he hoped that if he could prove that the Iraqis had complied, all of the sanctions would be lifted and the mother of all resolutions would be voided. But there seem to be persistent whispers and hints and asides from the Administration in Washington that they would not, under any circumstances, while Saddam Hussein is in power, consider lifting those. Do you think that this is helpful towards achieving Iraqi cooperation? Did they raise the question of the light at the end of the tunnel?

Mr. BRAHIMI: Oh yes, they spoke about that a great deal. And I think what they said was that they fear that these sanctions are not going to be lifted. I would not comment on what the Americans say or don't say. But what the Iraqis told us is that this is one of their major concerns.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary-General, as a matter of principle, can you accept a nation such as Iraq dictating what countries would be members of the inspection group or any United Nations group?

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL: No, definitely not. I think that how United Nations teams are composed is strictly a matter for the United Nations. These teams are composed on the basis of competence, on the needs. And it is the United Nations and UNSCOM that make that determination. And the same goes for the personnel working for us around the world. We determine who does it.

QUESTION: I would like to address this to Mr. Brahimi and the other envoys. I've been looking through the documents from UNSCOM, and they are very overt in rejecting Iraq's claims to have gotten rid of its germ warfare, biological warfare capacity. They describe a pattern of evasion, concealment, deception, lying, etc. In your many hours of listening to the Iraqis, did they ever give you anything plausible that you can hang onto, that would explain their position or their justification or their motive for concealing these biological weapons?

Mr. BRAHIMI: We are not technicians, and the instructions of the Secretary-General were that we would not go into the technical decisions of how the work has proceeded, what has been achieved and what still remains to be achieved. We, the three of us, simply could not go into that.

As the Secretary-General said, this is the business of UNSCOM, which is mandated by the Security Council to do that work and to report to the United Nations on it. We simply could not go into it or discuss this problem.

QUESTION: From what the accounts were, you were treated to many hours, if not days, of speeches and explanations and lectures, and so on. Did they give any -— was there anything in there that explained in a way that we have not heard why they are found not to be complying? Did they say anything?

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Mr. BRAHIMI: They said a lot of things, but we told them that it is not up to us either to agree or disagree with what they said or pass judgement on what they say. Our task in that field was to bring back to the United Nations what they told us.

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL: I think Mr. Brahimi is absolutely correct. The message they took was clear -— to seek full compliance by Iraq with all relevant Security Council resolutions and to rescind this decision of 29 October. They were not there to get into negotiations or anything of the kind, but they were also to listen and to bring back what the Iraqis told them. That is exactly what they have done.

Perhaps, before we close, I would like to ask the other two envoys if there is anything they would like to say.

Mr. ELIASSON: We had two tasks. One was to very clearly convey the message from the Secretary-General which you have just heard described. And the other one was to listen to their grievances and concerns. What we spent time with was not only listening to the Iraqi exposés, but also arguing why they should rescind their decision, why it should be in their enlightened self-interest to work inside the system -— one of the reasons being that they could indeed have a fairer hearing if they were to comply with the Security Council resolutions. They are outside the system and have grievances. These grievances will not be heard. And that shows them the relationship between our first task and the second task.

Mr. CÁRDENAS: Just a footnote. We also told them that the requests they were making were unrealistic. And I only hope that by talking to the Secretary-General, by talking to the P-5, by talking to the Security Council, they will realize that it is unrealistic to request what they are requesting as they are requesting it.

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