IRAQ'S COMPLETE FULFILMENT OF OBLIGATIONS IS ONLY AIM OF AGREEMENT SECURED LAST WEEK, SECRETARY-GENERAL INFORMS SECURITY COUNCIL
Press Release
SG/SM/6475
IK/244
IRAQ'S COMPLETE FULFILMENT OF OBLIGATIONS IS ONLY AIM OF AGREEMENT SECURED LAST WEEK, SECRETARY-GENERAL INFORMS SECURITY COUNCIL
19980302 Following is the text of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's statement made at this evening's meeting of the Security Council:I wish to thank and commend the members of the Security Council for the action you are about to take in relation to the agreement that I secured last week from the Government of Iraqi. If respected, if honoured, and if sustained, this agreement could constitute one of the United Nations' most important steps in addressing the consequences of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait seven years ago.
I would like to take this opportunity to make clear to the entire international community the nature, the demands and the promise of this agreement.
I went to Baghdad, with the full authorization of all members of the Security Council, in search of a peaceful solution to the crisis. I went to fulfil my constitutional obligation under the United Nations Charter, and my commitment to the General Assembly at the commencement of my term -- a sacred, moral obligation and commitment -- to act, any time, anywhere, without seeking or accepting instructions from any government, whenever that action may be helpful in reducing a grave threat to international peace and security.
No one can doubt or dispute that Iraq's refusal to honour its commitments under Security Council resolutions regarding its weapons of mass destruction constituted such a threat. That threat has now been averted.
The mandate of the Security Council has been reaffirmed. The full and unlimited access of United Nations inspectors to any and all sites has been restored. The authority of the Executive Chairman of the United Nations Special Commission has been acknowledged and strengthened. Whether the threat to international peace and security has been averted for all time is now in the hands of the Iraqi leadership. It is now for them to comply in practice with what they have signed on paper.
I am under no illusions about the inherent value of this or any other agreement. Commitments honoured are the only commitments that count. Indeed, this agreement, and today's Security Council resolution, will merely be empty words unless both parties now implement it fully, fairly, and without delay.
For our part, the United Nations stands ready for that implementation. We shall continue to fulfil our long-standing obligation to act with respect for the sovereignty and dignity of every Member of the United Nations. We shall continue to strive to improve in every way the cooperation and effectiveness of every United Nations agency.
That includes UNSCOM, which, I am proud to repeat, has already destroyed more weapons of mass destruction in Iraq than did the entire Gulf war, and which, under this agreement, remains in full operational control of the inspection process.
For its part, the Government of Iraq must now fulfil, without obstruction or delay, the continuing obligations that it reaffirmed last week at the very highest level. That means accepting all relevant Security Council resolutions; cooperating fully with United Nations inspection teams; according immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access to those teams to every area, facility, piece of equipment, individual and means of transportation.
Those areas include the eight sites delineated as "Presidential Sites" where members of UNSCOM and IAEA will be joined by senior diplomats whom I will appoint.
Iraq's complete fulfilment of these obligations is the one and only aim of this agreement. Nothing more and nothing less will make possible the completion of the United Nations-mandated disarmament process and thus speed the lifting of sanctions, in accordance with the previous resolutions of the Security Council. With today's Security Council resolution, however, the Government of Iraq fully understands that if this effort to ensure compliance through negotiation is obstructed, by evasion or deception, as were previous efforts, diplomacy may not have a second chance. No promise of peace and no policy of patience can be without limits.
This agreement tests as never before the will of the Iraqi leadership to keep its word. But it also serves as a call for this union of nations to look to the future, beyond the horizon and to the time when the disarmament process in Iraq has been completed.
All of us can agree that sanctions have added greatly to the Iraqi people's suffering; that the expansion of the oil-for-food programme will reduce that suffering without diluting the disarmament regime; and that someday, sooner or later -- and we pray sooner -- a fully disarmed and peaceable Iraq would be able to rejoin the family of nations.
The United Nations, founded even before the close of the Second World War over 50 years ago, has an inherent obligation to remember that even the bitterest of enmities among nations do not last forever. It is, therefore,
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not too early for us to think about reconciling peoples once their governments are at peace.
The agreement reached in Baghdad was neither a "victory" nor a "defeat" for any one person, nation or group of nations. Certainly, the United Nations and the world community lost nothing, gave away nothing and conceded nothing of substance. But by halting, at least for now, the renewal of military hostilities in the Gulf, it was a victory for peace, for reason, for the resolution of conflict by diplomacy.
It underscored, however, that if diplomacy is to succeed, it must be backed both by force and by fairness.
The agreement was also a reminder to the entire world of why this Organization was established in the first place: to prevent the outbreak of unnecessary conflict when the will of the world community can be achieved through diplomacy; to seek and find international solutions to international problems; to obtain respect for international law and agreements from a recalcitrant party without destroying forever that party's dignity and willingness to cooperate; to secure, in this case, through on-site inspections and negotiations, the assured destruction of weapons of mass destruction that aerial bombardment can never achieve.
If this agreement is fully implemented and leads over time to a new day in the Gulf; if this exercise in diplomacy, backed by fairness, firmness and force, stands the test of time, it will serve as an enduring and invaluable precedent for the United Nations and the world community.
If, ultimately, we have learned the right lessons of this crisis, then this planet's age-old prayer for enduring peace and justice may be within our reach. It was that prayer, from people of every faith and every frontier, that sustained me on my journey for peace to Baghdad. I pledge today, before this Council and the world, to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield in the fulfilment of my duty.
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