By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, February 21 -- In front of the UN Security Council Tuesday morning, the Permanent Representatives of the UK and Morocco were asked about Russia's public statements that it was asking for a UN envoy or representative to Syria, on humanitarian issues. Both said they hadn't heard of it, at least in the Council.
A Russian diplomat scoffed to Inner City Press that the statement had been put on the Internet and Twitter, and pushed out by ambassadors in Lebanon and elsewhere. We all read these things, he said. But anyway we will raise it tomorrow in consultations, after the piracy briefing.
A usually well informed diplomat, after attending Brazil's "Responsibility While Protecting" event at the UN Tuesday afternoon, told Inner City Press he at least wasn't aware of Russia's proposal. He added, perhaps joking, that "the Russian who works for OCHA in Geneva" was perhaps the envoy "they have in mind."
Inside the Responsibility while Protecting meeting, Inner City Press asked Saudi Arabia's Permanent Representative, "any envoy?" We're working on it, he replied. But Ban Ki-moon was setting off, later that day, on yet another trip, this time for a week including to Zambia and Angola.
Syria's Ja'afari with Brazil PR & FM on Feb 21, (c) MRLee
