UNITED NATIONS, May 25 – There are many ironies in the UN system; Syria becoming the president of the UN Conference on Disarmament on May 28 seems one. On April 10 Inner City Press went to the US State Department briefing and asked spokesperson Heather Nauert about it. Video here from 32:03. On April 16, Inner City Press asked the UN Permanent Representative of Liechtenstein about it; he said (Scope here, video here) that he was surprised (as was a self-described "UN resident correspondent" to whom the UN gives more access than Inner City Press). But unless these surprised Ambassadors actually do something, the alphabet will rule: on April 11, Inner City Press asked UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' two top spokesmen, "Given what the Secretary General has said about the reported use of chemical weapons most recently in Douma, what is his position on, and what will he do about, Syria being slated to become President of the Conference on Disarmament in May?" Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq replied to Inner City Press (while not responding to another UN corruption question), "On the disarmament question, our colleagues in Geneva have shared the following: 'We can confirm that, following the current presidency of Switzerland, the Syrian Arab Republic should serve as President of the Conference as of 28 May 2018 for four weeks. According to the Rules of Procedure ‘The Presidency of the Conference shall rotate among all its members; ... The rotation which began in January 1979, based on the English alphabetical list of membership, shall be followed.’ Therefore, the next State in the list after Switzerland is indeed the Syrian Arab Republic. It is to be noted that only the Member States of the Conference on Disarmament can take decisions about their Rules of Procedure including with regard to their rotating Presidency.'" Ah, leadership under Antonio Guterres....
Now it gets worse. After Guterres' spokesmen told Inner City Press Guterres had no role, now on May 24 in Geneva Guterres tried to have it both ways, with a weak statement, only in French, which the UN distributedwithout translating. Some even praised Guterres for this - which was his goal, to have it both ways. We'll have more on this.
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.
