By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, November 25 -- After the UN Security Council much belatedly issued a press statement Monday on the carnage in Iraq, Inner City Press asked the Council's president and then Iraq's Permanent Representative what had taken so long.
Just as the Security Council has not met or even had a briefing about Libya and militias in Tripoli killing dozens of civilians, there is a similar resistance to admitting how un-solved Iraq is after intervention.
But Iraq's Permanent Representative Mohamed Alhakim told Inner City Press that his country had been asking the Council to issue a statement.
Inner City Press asked, so it was only the US opposing it?
He replied that, "We wanted a clear" statement. "Sometimes a mixture of different" approaches "and we were against that." We said, "please come up with something unified, strong, target the organizations and countries" behind the terrorism, which "has support of money."
The press statement provides:
"The members of the Security Council underlined the need to bring perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism to justice, and urged all States, in accordance with their obligations under international law and relevant Security Council resolutions, to cooperate actively with Iraqi authorities in this regard. "
Inner City Press asked Martin Kobler's successor as UN envoy to Iraq Nickolay Mladenov about his upbeat tweet, that the day's briefing was "against a backdrop of encouraging 1st steps on Geneva II & Iran interim agreement."
Mladenov replied that these are "positive first steps, lessing region tensions and creating a regional approach to the challenge of sectarianism and terrorism." Video here from Minute 1:30.
At the day's noon briefing, Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon spokesperson Martin Nesirky if in the UN's view armed groups affiliated with Al Qaeda can attend the Geneva II talks on Syria, set for January 22. Nesirky replied to ask the opposition. Video here, from Minute 24; 26:43. We'll have more on this.
