Wednesday, April 30, 2014

FOIA Response Shows UN Feltman Communication with US On "Other System" - Non-UN?


By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 30 -- Of a recent Freedom of Information Act disclosure by the US State Department, many have argued that there is no smoking gun, there is nothing new. Focusing on the UN, Inner City Press does find something new, though perhaps already known or suspected by some.

  Former US official Jeffrey Feltman, now head of the UN Department of Political Affairs, wrote from his UN.org email account to then Susan Rice-staffer Salman Ahmed on September 12, 2012 saying "thank you for your note on the other system." (The topic was Benghazi and Chris Stevens, may he and his colleagues rest in peace.)

  The UN question raised, as it was by the leaked audio of Victoria Nuland telling US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoff Pyatt that Feltman got UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to send Robert Serry to Ukraine, is in how close contact Feltman remains with US officials -- and HOW, on what "other system"?

Here is the document, click here.

  Does this mean, other e-mail system? As simple as Gmail or more secure?

  When Inner City Press asked the UN about the Nuland audio, Ban's deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq tried to claim the Nuland wasn't referring telling Geoff Pyatt about Jeff Feltman but rather some third, still undisclosed Jeff (or Geoff).

  Now Feltman is on his way to Ukraine again, after a formal stop in Cyprus -- about which Inner City Press previously asked the UN without confirmation until today. Feltman is a genial individual but these questions must be asked, and the UN should answer them.

  How will the UN now explain Feltman and the US Mission's "other system"? Watch this site.