ACTIVITIES OF SECRETARY-GENERAL IN QATAR, 29 - 30 JUNE
On his arrival in Doha on Tuesday, 29 June, Secretary-General Kofi Annan was stopped by the press with questions on Iraq. Asked if it was safe enough for the United Nations to go back into Iraq, he replied, “We are monitoring the security situation; and, of course, security is essential, not just for the UN staff but for the average Iraqi, for reconstruction, for all the wonderful things that one wants to do in Iraq”. He concluded, “And, therefore, one of the key issues is to create a secure environment so that all these things can happen.”
On his way from the airport to his hotel, he stopped for a tour of EducationCity, a new 800-hectare campus housing a variety of educational institutions, including extensions of a number of American universities. For example, VirginiaCommonwealthUniversity offers a program in the arts, WeillCornellMedicalCollege in medicine, Texas A & M in engineering and Carnegie Mellon in business and computer science. EducationCity was described as “educational diplomacy” designed to foster “brain gain” rather than “brain drain”. The Secretary-General toured the medical facility and chatted with professors and students.
He then spent the afternoon making calls to world leaders on Iraq, the Sudan and other subjects.
In the late afternoon, he gave a press conference. On Iraq, in his opening statement, he called on all Iraqis “to come together in a spirit of national unity and reconciliation” to lay down “secure foundations for the new Iraq”. Their first duty, he said, “is to assist their Interim Government to establish security for the population so that the difficult process of the return toward normalcy can commence”. Responding to a question, he said, “I stand ready to go to Iraq in the future, but I have no immediate plans to go to Iraq now”. In reply to another, he observed, “I doubt that we are going to see another Iraq very soon. I think there are lessons in Iraq for everyone”.
Asked about the Sudan, the Secretary-General said, “We cannot talk of comprehensive peace in Sudan if the fighting and the gross and systematic human rights abuses in west Sudan, in the Darfur region, continue”. He went on to say that “the sacred duty of any government is to protect its population”. In response to another question, he asserted, “If that government is not able or willing to do it, the international community has to do something about it. It cannot sit still; it cannot sit idle”.
In the evening, he attended a dinner in his honour hosted by His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar, and the First Lady, Her Highness Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al-Misnad.
The Secretary-General travelled to Khartoum, Sudan, the following morning, 30 June.