Secretary-General's press encounter

Rencontres avec la presse | Kofi Annan, Ancien Secrétaire général

Q: Hi, Mr. Secretary-General. The Iraqis today agreed to U2 flights; they said they were going to pass legislation. The French, Germans and Russians called for more inspections, but the United States keeps saying the game is over. Do you believe that the game is over?

SG: Let me say that we all have to wait for the report of the inspectors. They should be in the [Security] Council on Friday to hear what they have to say. I know that, at the moment, there appear to be differences of opinion as to how we should proceed. But I am confident that the Member States will be able to find a way out of this.

Q: Do you think that Iraq is complying 100 per cent with what you have seen so far?

SG: I would not want to speculate. As I said, I am waiting for the report of the inspectors and then the Council will have to make that judgement.

Q: Do you find what they did today, the announcement on the U2s and on the legislation, encouraging? Is this a good sign?

SG: It is encouraging. In fact, both [Chief Inspectors Hans] Blix and [Mohammed] ElBaradei said they are beginning to see a change, a certain change in their attitude, and he doesn't describe it as a breakthrough and he hoped this would be sustained. But since I haven't spoken to him and I haven't seen his report, you can understand I am hesitant to jump in and comment.

Q: Could you answer one more question about why you've called a meeting of the Security Council to discuss contingency planning on humanitarian issues?

SG: First of all, let me say, as Secretary-General I have made it very clear that I hope this issue can be resolved peacefully. But of course we are also realistic, and we have handled previous crises before, and we are doing contingency planning, and I stress contingency planning, without any expectation, any decision one way or the other, so that we will not be caught unprepared if things were to go the military way. We have had enough experience in other crises to understand that we should make some arrangements and preparations, and we know what happened in ྗ, and we are not taking anything for granted. We hope it will be resolved peacefully but we just want to share with the Council members our thinking, our basic planning, and the information we have through the research we have done.