WASHINGTON, April 10 – There are many ironies in the UN system; Syria becoming the president of the UN Conference on Disarmament seems one, currently scheduled for late May. On April 10 as the UN Security Council descended ever more into absurdity, with no fewer than three draft resolutions on chemical weapons in Douma, Syria failing on in a single afternoon, Inner City Press went to the US State Department briefing and asked spokesperson Heather Nauert about it. Video here from 32:03
From the US transcript: Inner City Press: Matthew Russell Lee.
MS NAUERT: Okay.
QUESTION: Yeah. So I wanted --
MS NAUERT: Nice to meet you.
QUESTION: All right. I’m glad to be here. I wanted to ask you, this is maybe – I don’t know if it’s in your binder or not, if – two things I wanted to ask. One has to do with Syria’s set to the president of the Conference on Disarmament of the UN.
MS NAUERT: Mm-hmm, I saw that.
Inner City Press: And Robert Wood, your – yeah, your ambassador said --
MS NAUERT: Ironic, right?
Inner City Press: Yeah, highly ironic. [Wood said] they’re un – not qualified. I wanted to know: Do you have any ideas yet what that will mean? Will the U.S. walk out? Will they not participate? And I have one other question for you.
MS NAUERT: Okay. I’m certainly aware of that story and that story taking place. That would be an outrage if Syria were to take control of that. We have seen these types of things happen at the United Nations before where suspicious countries, which countries that run against everything that an individual committee should stand for, will then head up that committee. I haven’t spoken to Ambassador Haley about that and what she may or may not do, so I don’t want to get ahead of any decisions she might make.
At least some response - on the same day, the UN refused to answer a single one of Inner City Press' three questions, after having evicted and still restricting Inner City Press. We will continue to cover this. For now, thisPeriscope video just after the State Department briefing. Watch this site.
