Secretary-General's press encounter at opening of Trygve Lie Gallery

SG: First of all, I want to send my deepest sympathy to the families who lost loved ones. It's always a tragedy when this happens. And we're going through a very difficult phase in Iraq at the moment.

I have always maintained that security was important for my staff to return. Our activities are today constrained by the security environment. We have a team there that is helping advise the Iraqis and the CPA on the way forward on the transition process.

But obviously we're going to remain alert, we're going to keep our eyes open and analyze the situation vis-à-vis security before we take any decision.

But this is not encouraging, I mean what happened today.

Q: But does this make it more difficult for the UN to return?

SG: Well, we need to have a secure environment to be able to go back and I'm not sure we have it yet.

Thank you very much.