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13/08/2004
UN's Iraq envoy calls for Najaf peace deal
The UN's Iraq envoy has called for a peaceful solution to the fighting currently raging in the holy Shiite Muslim city of Najaf.
Arriving in Baghdad today, Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Special Representative Ashraf Jehangir Qazi called for a peaceful settlement to avoid losing more lives unnecessarily, and urged international humanitarian law be observed for those wounded.
Mr Qazi reiterated the UN’s commitment to help Iraq in the political transition towards a constitutional democracy by the end of 2005 and said the National Conference had to be as “inclusive of the range of Iraqi opinion as possible in order for its outcome to have maximum credibility among the Iraqi people”.
Mr Qazi is expected to attend the upcoming National Conference of representative Iraqis, which is to choose a body to monitor the work of the interim government. The conference was postponed for two weeks at the end of last month at the suggestion of UN officials to allow time to include more participants.
The envoy's arrival follows on from yesterday's unanimous Security Council decision to renewal the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), for a further year. UNAMI was created to coordinate various humanitarian operations and helping the war-torn country to organize elections by the end of January and draft a new constitution.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has said that staff security remains an "overriding constraint" for all UN operations in Iraq in the wake of last August’s terrorist bomb attack on UN offices in Baghdad that killed Special Representative Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 others.
(gmcg)
Arriving in Baghdad today, Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Special Representative Ashraf Jehangir Qazi called for a peaceful settlement to avoid losing more lives unnecessarily, and urged international humanitarian law be observed for those wounded.
Mr Qazi reiterated the UN’s commitment to help Iraq in the political transition towards a constitutional democracy by the end of 2005 and said the National Conference had to be as “inclusive of the range of Iraqi opinion as possible in order for its outcome to have maximum credibility among the Iraqi people”.
Mr Qazi is expected to attend the upcoming National Conference of representative Iraqis, which is to choose a body to monitor the work of the interim government. The conference was postponed for two weeks at the end of last month at the suggestion of UN officials to allow time to include more participants.
The envoy's arrival follows on from yesterday's unanimous Security Council decision to renewal the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), for a further year. UNAMI was created to coordinate various humanitarian operations and helping the war-torn country to organize elections by the end of January and draft a new constitution.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has said that staff security remains an "overriding constraint" for all UN operations in Iraq in the wake of last August’s terrorist bomb attack on UN offices in Baghdad that killed Special Representative Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 others.
(gmcg)
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