No plans yet for Security Council to meet on UN role in Iraq, President says

Although Secretary-General Kofi Annan will be convening talks in New York later this month on the future role of the United Nations in Iraq with officials from that country, the Security Council currently has no plans to have a public meeting to discuss the situation there, the President of the 15-member body said today.

"I cannot exclude the possibility that we will have an open session on Iraq but as of now, there is nothing contemplated," Ambassador Heraldo Muñoz of Chile, which holds the rotating Presidency for the month of January, said at a press briefing on the Council's monthly work programme.

The Secretary-General, who is scheduled to meet on 19 January with an Iraqi delegation led by this month's President of the Governing Council, Adnan Pachachi, told reporters today that he also expects senior representatives from the United States to participate in the talks.

Ambassador Muñoz added that as President of the Council, he would try to convey its collective will - regarding a possible meeting - "and not push anything that I see that will not have the unanimous support of the 15 members."

The Chilean representative, who is also the Chairman of the Council's committee overseeing sanctions against Al-Qaida and the Taliban, noted that he would present a report of the 1267 Committee, as it is known, to the full Council next Monday.

"It will be a richer report than the ones presented before," he said, pointing out that the text will contain information not only about the trips that he has undertaken as Chairman of the Committee but also the reports presented by UN Member States and the conclusions of the Committee's expert panel monitoring implementation of the sanctions.

"Clearly we will have to put an emphasis on the things that are not done satisfactorily yet, and that will be an element to contemplate in the draft resolution that we hope to be working on and have ready well before" a meeting on 16 January, he said.

Speaking in his national capacity, Ambassador Muñoz said Chile would like to have that resolution to be stronger, "with more teeth," addressing the voids that have been observed in the implementation of the sanctions regime. "I think we can do that and I hope to have the consensus of the Security Council to strengthen that resolution because terrorism, and Al-Qaida and the Taliban, continue to be a menace not only in Afghanistan but as we know elsewhere," he said.

Among the Council's other meetings will be an open debate on 26 January, at the initiative of Chile, on the UN's role in post-conflict national reconciliation. While the Council has placed a great deal of emphasis on stopping conflicts and on intervening to separate warring parties, very often there has not been much stress on what follows once a conflict is over, Ambassador Muñoz said. The meeting aims to focus on those factors, which, if ignored, could lead to a resumption of conflict, he warned.

Video of Council President's press briefing