Iraq: Security Council denounces ousted regime's killing of missing Kuwaitis

Following up on a report by Secretary-General Kofi Annan that the bodies of some of the 605 Kuwaitis missing since Iraq's invasion of 1990 had been found in mass graves in Iraq, the United Nations Security Council today denounced the killings as a "grave violation of human rights" by the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein.

"Members of the Council strongly condemned the grave violation of human rights and the killing of Kuwaiti and other third-country nationals by the former regime of Iraq also in disregard of the provisions of international humanitarian law," the Council said in a press statement after being briefed in a closed-door session on Mr. Annan's report by the High-Level Coordinator on the issue, Yuli Vorontsov of the Russian Federation.

"They expressed their deep condolences to the families of those missing persons who have now been identified," said the statement, read by Deputy Permanent Representative Fayssal Mekdad of Syria, which holds the 15-nation body's presidency for August. "Members of the Council expressed their continuing concerns for the plight of the families of those missing persons whose whereabouts are still unknown."

The statement also noted Mr. Annan's recommendation that his next report, due in December, should be the last one and expressed the hope that all outstanding issues could be resolved by then.