S/PV.6087
6087th meeting
Thursday, 26 February 2009, 10.10 a.m.
New York
The situation concerning Iraq
Mr. Dabbashi (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya) (spoke in Arabic): I wish at the outset to thank Mr. Staffan de Mistura for his comprehensive briefing. We welcome our brother, Mr. Hamid Al Bayati, Permanent Representative of Iraq, and we thank him for his valuable contribution to our discussion today.
In our view a recent political development in Iraq is of great importance: the holding of provincial elections in January in 14 out of Iraq’s 18 governorates. This is reason for optimism, in particular because of the high level of participation in the elections, which is especially encouraging owing to the participation of certain sectors and factions that had boycotted the previous elections, held in 2005. We are also gratified by the continued improvement in security conditions, with a major decline in violence and the absence of significant incidents on election day. This further underscores the continuing improvement in the capacity of Iraqi security forces and the decline in sectarian sensitivities.
We commend the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) for their efforts to support the Independent High Electoral Commission during the preparations for the elections held on 31 January, and for their endeavours to resolve disputes with regard to Iraq’s internal borders. We urge UNAMI and the Special Representative to continue to play their neutral role in building confidence among the parties concerned, in encouraging dialogue and consultation and in working together with the Iraqi Government to achieve consensus among all parties concerned.
We stress the importance of continued dialogue among Iraqi actors concerning federalism and hydrocarbon regulation, which are two important issues that must be resolved in order to bring about long-term stability in Iraq. We look forward to the discussions to be held before the parliamentary recess, which will continue to follow up the round table hosted by UNAMI with a view to identifying specific, concrete and feasible solutions.
We congratulate our Iraqi brethren on the Paris Club’s cancellation of Iraq’s debt in December 2008. This is recognition of Iraqi efforts to attain the internationally agreed development goals and of Iraq’s ability to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. This augurs well for the country’s economic and social development. We welcome the fact that the United Nations and the World Bank established an Iraq Partners Forum in November 2008 in order to coordinate the strategies of donors and of the United Nations for Iraq and to ensure the greatest possible transparency and effectiveness.
With respect to the humanitarian situation, we are most satisfied with the continued return and repatriation of Iraqi internally displaced persons and refugees. Nearly 40,000 returnee families had been registered in Iraq as of the end of 2008, which is a great achievement, and one of Iraq’s largest camps for internally displaced persons, in Najaf, was closed. But we are still gravely concerned at the continued presence of millions of Iraqi refugees outside the country, in particular in neighbouring countries. We hope that the Iraqi Government will attach priority to their return and will bring about the appropriate circumstances for that to take place. Moreover, we would like to express our satisfaction at the decline in the rate of cholera infection and we welcome the deployment of an international field mission under the leadership of the World Health Organization in the affected provinces.
Despite the progress achieved in the humanitarian field throughout 2008, the circumstances of the vulnerable sectors of the Iraqi people and the internally displaced persons are still a source of concern. Even relief programmes have been delayed because of the lack of funding and, as the report of the Secretary-General (S/2009/102) notes, 1 million Iraqis still face food insecurity and a further 6 million would be exposed to food insecurity were it not for the social security network, primarily the public distribution of food rations.
We note the rise in the illiteracy level to 24 per cent in southern Iraq and that the school drop-out rate has reached 10 per cent, while the level of chronic child malnutrition in the South has reached nearly 22 per cent. With regard to northern Iraq, it is still suffering unstable and fluctuating power supplies, which is a very important element in the living conditions of the people. We support the United Nations call for investment to be concentrated in those areas where the weakest humanitarian and development indicators have been registered, as well as those affected by conflict-related violence and population movements.
There has been concrete progress towards ensuring the human rights of Iraqi citizens through the enactment of a law establishing an Independent High Commission for Human Rights, but we are still concerned by the killings of some political candidates and electoral workers and the displacement of nearly 2,400 families from their homeland in Mosul at the end of 2008, as well as by killings of and other attacks on journalists, teachers, parliamentarians, humanitarian workers, judges and lawyers.
We are gravely concerned by the occupying forces’ continued detention of more than 15,000 people, including 58 children, without arrest warrants issued by Iraqi judges. I would like to underscore our concern with regard to the general conditions of the detainees under Iraqi custody, as noted in paragraph 47 of the Secretary-General’s report. Some have been deprived of their freedom for months and years in substandard conditions, without access to defence counsel and without being formally charged with a crime or brought before a judge.
We welcome the end of the mandate of the multinational force in Iraq and the Iraqi Government’s assumption of responsibility for security in the country. We look forward to the full withdrawal of all occupying forces from Iraq as soon as possible and the reunification of the Iraqi people, and welcome the emphasis on its sovereignty and territorial integrity. We would like to emphasize that the continued presence of the occupying forces in any form could be a factor for disunity and instability and would not contribute to national reconciliation, which is considered to be an indispensable condition for the stability, reconstruction and economic growth of Iraq.
The situation in Iraq has changed since the Security Council adopted resolution 661 (1990). It is time for the Council to review that resolution and for Iraq to recover the legal and international status that prevailed before the adoption of that resolution and the sanctions imposed on it in accordance with Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter. Here, we would like to recall the request to the Secretary-General to prepare a report on this matter in consultation with the Iraqi Government in accordance with resolution 1859 (2008). We look forward to the issuance of that report and to the Council’s subsequent adoption of measures in that regard.
In conclusion, we would like to express our great appreciation for the efforts undertaken by the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq and the various United Nations agencies working on Iraq’s reconstruction. We call upon all States to support Iraq in order to help its brotherly people.
