18 February 1998
U.S. AWAITS VISIT OF UN SECRETARY GENERAL TO BAGHDAD
(Hopes it will succeed, but is not optimistic) (690) By Wendy S. Ross USIA White House Correspondent Washington -- The visit to Baghdad this weekend of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan will give him "an opportunity to relay the consensus reached by the Permanent Five of the Security Council which will be a very strong message reminding the government of Iraq of the importance of full compliance with UN Security Council resolutions," White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry says. Speaking to reporters February 18, McCurry said "we want every effort to be made to achieve a peaceful diplomatic solution to this crisis, and we hope that the Secretary General can find one." Annan leaves for Paris February 19 where he is scheduled to meet with French President Jacques Chirac. The Secretary General is expected to arrive in Baghdad February 20 for weekend talks with Iraqi leaders. "It's important to make this effort," McCurry said. "We believe he will do so in the fashion that he has conducted himself generally as Secretary General. He is a man of very high principle, high integrity, and he has very clear instructions from the Security Council, unanimously given, that set out the parameters of his trip." McCurry said while he hopes the trip is successful, he is not optimistic that Annan will be able to achieve a breakthrough. "There has been no indication from the government of Iraq that would lead anyone to be optimistic," he said. "There has been only obstinacy, concealment, deliberate lies about past practices, no indication of a willingness to do the necessary, which is to live up to their international obligations." Whatever results from this trip, McCurry said, "will be measured by us according to criteria we've made very clear -- does it provide full access to the sites the UN Special Commission needs to see and does it maintain the integrity of the UN Special Commission?" There are some 60-odd so-called presidential sites, and there are dozens and dozens of other so called declared sensitive sites, the UN weapons inspectors need access to, McCurry said. President Clinton phoned Annan February 17 "to review with him the situation as the Security Council deliberated the utility of a mission, to discuss the parameters, and to assure that we would have the kind of unanimous support in the Security Council that we have now received," McCurry noted. Asked if the United States would accept in principle the idea of diplomatic observers accompanying UNSCOM teams on their inspections, McCurry said: "What we would accept is a solution that allows the UN Special Commission to have access to the sites it has not been allowed to visit; that allows them to continue to do the work that they must do; and that maintains the integrity of the UN inspections process in Iraq. How that might work, what the parameters and modalities of any solution like that might be is exactly the work that the Secretary General will now address as he makes his trip to Baghdad." McCurry said it's "our firm view, and now the firm view of the Security Council, that relevant Security Council resolutions must be adhered to, that there must be a process by which UNSCOM can do its work in Iraq, and that the integrity of that process which has worked so well over the last seven years must be maintained." Asked if the integrity of the United Nations process is preserved, does it matter whether other people accompany the inspectors, McCurry responded: "This may be the perfect and the good, if you can get access to those sites that have been declared off limits, and there are dozens and dozens of them, that would be important to the fulfillment of the UN mandate in Iraq. "But at this point, that has not been available to the United Nations and the Secretary General is now going to make an urgent consultation with the government of Iraq to see if there is some prospect that a diplomatic solution can be found," the Press Secretary explained.
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