Annan Tells Iraqis
UN to return soon to help hold polls
AFP, United Nations
Secretary General Kofi Annan told Iraqis on Thursday that UN experts will return to the country as soon as possible to help prepare for elections and a new government set to take power in three months. Capping months of debate over the UN role in Iraq, where the US occupation is scheduled to end June 30, Annan sent a letter pledging UN help after receiving a request from the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council. The move carries risk for the United Nations, which has had no permanent role in Iraq since Annan pulled his staff out in October following a devastating attack on its Baghdad offices in which 22 people died. The United States has been coy about how large a role it is willing to give the world body in Iraq but turned to Annan for help after Iraq's leading Shiite Muslim cleric rejected US plans for the power handover on June 30. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who wields powerful influence over the nation's 60 percent Shiite majority, had originally called for direct elections to take place before the handover. The United States said those elections were impossible. That view was supported by Lakhdar Brahimi, a respected Arab diplomat who concluded after a fact-finding mission to Iraq that credible elections could not be organised in time. Brahimi will lead a team to return to Iraq soon, along with elections experts who will try to organise national polls by the end of January 2005, the date fixed by the governing council, Annan said. "The United Nations remains committed to doing everything within its capacity to assist the people of Iraq when and as they request," the UN chief said in a letter, which was obtained by AFP. "I have therefore asked my special advisor Lakhdar Brahimi and his team, as well as the electoral assitance team, to return to Iraq as soon as possible in order to lend the advice and assistance you have requested." Annan received the request in a letter earlier Thursday along with a parallel request from Paul Bremer, the US overseer in Iraq. "We greatly value the United Nations' commitment to assisting the Iraqi people. I look forward to the United Nations' return to Iraq as soon as possible," Bremer said in his letter, also obtained by AFP. He said Brahimi should "help build consensus among Iraqis on the powers, structure and composition of the interim government and the process for its establishment." Saying the team should also help with elections, Bremer asked for Brahimi to arrive early next week. Annan fixed no date in his reply.
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