United Nations Secretary General rejected criticism in Moscow on Monday that the UN is not doing enough to help restore order in Iraq, and offered the world body’s aid in helping the war-torn country work out a new Constitution.
”Many suggest that … the UN is not adequately represented in this country,” Annan wrote in an article published by the centrist daily Izvestia.
”This is not so, firstly because there are many local UN employees working in Iraq and secondly because the bulk of our job there consists of training personnel, consulting work, coordination and supervising distribution of financial aid,” Annan said.
Although the UN did not give its assent to the US-led war there, it nonetheless has the means and the desire to help in the creation of a new and stable democratic system in the country, he wrote.
”I believe that we can help in the next, very delicate stage: the process of drafting a Constitution for the country.
”The new Constitution will of course be an Iraqi Constitution and Iraqis will themselves determine its form … but if they ask for advice (and I believe they will) we have knowledge and experience that we can offer.”
Annan’s article appeared in Moscow after Itar-Tass news agency reported that four experts from the UN panel investigating suspected corruption in the UN oil-for-food programme arrived in Moscow for a second round of consultations on the role of Russian firms in the programme.
In a dispatch on Friday quoting unnamed informed sources, Itar-Tass reported the arrival of the four UN investigators and said Russian authorities are cooperating fully with the probe, unlike ”many Western companies” who have rebuffed contact with the investigative panel.
Last Wednesday, the UN announced that the official who headed the scandal-tainted oil-for-food programme has asked for more time to answer charges against him, a request that is under consideration.
From 1996 to 2003, the oil-for-food programme was intended to help Iraqis cope with international sanctions imposed over Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, which sparked the 1991 Gulf War.
Under UN supervision, Baghdad was allowed to sell oil and use the revenue to buy humanitarian supplies such as food and medicine. The scheme swelled to become the largest aid programme in UN history. — AFP
