Transcript of press briefing by Sergio Vieira de Mello, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Iraq

13 August

SRSG: Thank you Salim. I will say a few words to begin with, then I will take your questions, and needless to say I will try to answer those if I can and Mona will help to translate into Arabic. Do not expect any great revelation from me today: it is just that I know some of you have been asking to talk to me and have even suggested I should come down and talk to you. I haven't been able to do so, because whenever there were briefings I was either busy or absent on my regional tour. So apologies for that and I will try to come as frequently as I can.

First I want to inform you about my recent visit to Egypt which concluded my tours of Iraq's neighbors. On Saturday I met Foreign Minister Maher in Cairo and the following morning in Burja al-Arab with Mr.Amre Moussa, Secretary-General of the League of Arab States.

I won't be going into many details because you can imagine what their leitmotif was as has been the case in my visits to other countries which was they want the UN to play a more central role in Iraq. That is not new, but what was important was their position on the Governing Council.

I think the visits have been useful in the sense they have contributed to bridge what I can call an "information gap" here. There is indeed a deficit in terms of mutual understanding, to put it mildly.

So I believe governments of the neighboring countries understand better the situation following our visits than was the case previously, and perhaps the most important point that I would like to report to you was the reaction from Amre Moussa, Secretary-General of the Arab League.

Amer Mossa has indicated that he will prepare the Secretariat General to receive members of the Governing Council at the League in Cairo starting next week, to engage in a dialogue which we all believe is essential. I believe this lack of face-to-face dialogue has led to huge misperceptions and misunderstandings and I believe it is high time for these to be resolved and overcome for direct contact, and I have started passing this message back to the Governing Council.

So my hope is that soon the Governing Council will be appointing members to tour the region. In particular to engage in this dialogue, which I believe is very productive with the Arab League. It is obvious to me that Iraq needs its neighbors and the neighbors of Iraq need this country as well. So it is about time they talk to one another.

Second I want to repeat what I have stated in a statement I issued last night, which is my congratulations to the Governing Council for the appointment of members of the preparatory constitutional commission. I reiterate here before you that the UN stands ready, if so requested, I underline 'if so requested,' to extend any possible support to the work of this commission and to the Governing Council in deciding what is the best way forward in the drafting and approval of the new constitution of Iraq. Let me also restate that it is often useful, to state the obvious, this is a process that must be led both procedurally and in terms of its contents by the Iraqis, this constitution must reflect the aspirations of the Iraqis and if they so request we can support them, only support them at their request, in preparing the new constitution of Iraq.

What's also obvious, my third point, is that whatever the Iraqis decide to do in terms of the preparation of a new constitution, elections will be held sometime in 2004. Referendum, parliamentary, presidential elections.., it's not for me to predict here. But balloting will take place in 2004 if we want the process to be truly democratic. And there as you know an electoral team of the UN from the headquarters in New York has been in Iraq for close to two weeks. They will be leaving tomorrow and I'd like to say a few words about their work.

They have consulted broadly as you may imagine with members of the Governing Council, with members of civil society, with the CPA, with colleagues in the UN. Very very broadly. Their conclusion is very simple. The UN if so requested can again assist in the preparation and the holding of whatever form of balloting the Iraqis opt for, be it a referendum, be it general elections or both in 2004.

My fourth point is an expression of hope that the Governing Council will soon be appointing interim ministers. The Governing Council is a political body. It now needs to appoint its executive branch, as it were, in the form of ministers.

The Iraqi people need these ministers, together with competent civil servants, and these exist in Iraq, to address the many many challenges that lie ahead. And the international community also needs ministers as counterparts, not least to prepare the donor conference that as you know will be held in Madrid on the 24th of October.

And as soon as these ministers are appointed the UN will be in a better position to support them sectorally because as you know there's a traditional role of the UN to provide assistance to ministries such as the Iraqis' because we need xx rebuilding their capacity, literally.

So I'll stop there and say nothing about the Security Council in New York because I'm almost certain you'll be asking that anyway.

Questions

Q. Did the SRSG ask neighboring countries such as Turkey to contribute peacekeeping forces in Iraq?

SRSG Vieira de Mello: My role was not to ask for that. You know the UN does not have a military role in Iraq. But it came up in Ankara where I met with the foreign minister Mr. Gul and also by coincidence with the Indian foreign minister who was visiting Turkey. And as you know the position of those two countries is that it would be much easier for them to respond to such needs if the request came from the Iraqi Governing Council and if they had a mandate from the Security Council of the United Nations.

Q. Did the CPA give a mandate to the UN to hold elections?

SRSG: No. We're not there yet. If this electoral team came to Iraq, it was at the request of members of the Governing Council and the C PA, particularly Ambassador Bremer and Ambassador Sawyers when he was still here. So we responded to an expression of interest both from the Iraqis and the CPA and as I said they worked very closely with both. But we are not yet at the point where we would be formally asked to undertake any electoral task here. I believe that will very much depend on the outcome of the work of the recently appointed preparatory constitutional commission

Q. What kind of elections do you expect?

SRSG: I don't expect anything and I've made it clear this is a decision for the Iraqis to make. Obviously it will depend on how they go about deciding to draft the Constitution and how they decide to put it to the people of Iraq. If it is by referendum we can help them organize that.

Q. Correira Della Serra: On relations with the US authorities here, these must be very delicate…and "the impression that they are trying to cut out any real concrete role for the UN…"

SRSG: A few weeks ago when I gave my first press briefing in Baghdad I told a colleague of yours who put a similar question to me that we are in a unique unprecedented situation. Here I was representing the Secretary-General of the United Nations in the territory of a founding member of the organization, that was then still without any form of representative institution which came later as the Governing Council while this country is under the administration and occupation not least by two permanent members of the Security Council so you're right this is delicate and this is indeed even bizarre.

But Resolution 1483 requires the SG, myself and my team to work and in one paragraph the word 'intensively' is even used, with the Coalition Authority, which we have been doing. Because this is the only way to achieve our common goal, which is to restore as soon as possible the full sovereignty of the Iraqis. So the relation has been business-like, has been constructive. It has been open. It has been frank. We haven't agreed on everything, which is normal and natural and to be expected, but I think I can tell you that we have been working well with them.

Q. Inaudible, again on whether any particular challenge or problem was coming up in terms of relations with the CPA.

SRSG: That's a loaded question because we have a wide variety of areas in which we are already working together: the formation of the Governing Council, support to the political processes that lie ahead, support to the interim ministers once they are approved, preparation of the donor conference, which is of fundamental importance in terms of mobilizing resources for the reconstruction of Iraq and the revival of its economy. There are so many other areas including the one that I know more than others, which is developing human rights institutions and a human rights culture in this country that prevents recurrences of the abuses of the past. In all those areas, we are already working together.

The shift is now from the Coalition to the new Iraqi institutions, as it should be. And there we have no intention of competing with the CPA or anyone else. We need to join forces and be complementary to one another in support of the Iraqis to take the destiny of this country in their own hands. So I'm not going to list potential difficulties because I see none if we work for unity of purpose, which is Iraq and the will of the Iraqi people.

Q. Inaudible…about recognition of the Governing Council, and chances of a Security Council resolution….

SRSG: First of all, on the question of recognition, I think the Arab League after the meeting last week of the special committee on Iraq made it quite clear that it did not believe it could recognize the Governing Council as a legitimate government of Iraq. But that does not mean that it has not welcomed the establishment of the Governing Council, as Minister Maher told me, as a first step, as an important step towards the full restoration of Iraqi sovereignty. So I believe what will happen once the Governing Council and the Arab League establish this dialogue and nurture it, is that increasingly the Arab world will give its support to the Governing Council in this very very difficult transition that will lead to the full recognition of Iraq as a member of the Arab family of nations and of the United Nations.

And in return, the Governing Council will provide its neighbors including its Arab neighbors with all the assurances they need that this is a government that will pursue a policy of cooperation and the development of friendly relations with its neighbors, as must be the case. That's the only way forward. So I can see a gradual process of rapprochement between the Arab League and the Governing Council in the months ahead.

On the question of the Security Council, we're talking about two different things here. What is in the making I understand is a possible resolution by the Security Council that would welcome the establishment of the Governing Council number one, and authorize the Secretary General to establish an integrated United Nations assistance mission in Iraq. That's one thing. And it might be adopted in the coming days although as you know the Security Council is its own master and I cannot speak for that.

But there is also the possibility in the air for quite some time that another resolution may be adopted with a broader scope, including perhaps providing those countries that need such a mandate with a green light for the deployment of military contingents in Iraq. Now I'm not authorized to speak about that and I think that is still down the line, and if consultations are ongoing on that subject, I'm not aware.