19 March 1998
OBSERVERS NAMED FOR IRAQI PRESIDENTIAL SITE TEAMS
(American, British envoys included in list) (540) By Judy Aita USIA United Nations Correspondent United Nations -- The U.N. Special Commission overseeing the destruction of Iraq's weapons (UNSCOM) March 19 released the names of 19 diplomats who will act as "diplomatic observers" during weapons inspections of eight presidential sites. UNSCOM Commissioner Jayantha Dhanapala, the U.N. undersecretary general for disarmament who is heading the special group, made public the list of senior diplomats who will be going to Baghdad March 23 to take part in the upcoming inspections. UNSCOM has said the inspections will begin before the end of March. To compile the list, Dhanapala sent letters to about 60 U.N. member nations inviting them to nominate senior diplomats already based in Baghdad or in the region who have experience in the area and would be able to join the UNSCOM weapons experts. He received replies from 28 countries and then selected the initial group, according to a U.N. spokesman. Included on the list are Washington-based Ambassador Ryan Crocker of the United States and British Counselor Simon Collis who is based in Amman. The list also included envoys from the other three countries who are permanent members of the Security Council: Chinese Minister Counselor Cui Tiankai, who is based in New York; retired French diplomat Marcel Laugel, an Arabist living in Beirut; and Russian Minister Alexandre Kalugin, who is in Moscow. Non-permanent members of the Security Council who also have diplomats on the list are: Brazil (Minister Counselor Oswaldo Eurico Portella in Vienna), Gambia (Babou Ousman Jobe in Banjul), Gabon (Counselor Alfred Moussotsi in New York), Slovenia (Ambassador Andrej Zlebnik in Cairo), South Korea (Minister Counselor Kim Woon-Nam in Riyadh), Sweden (Ambassador Johan Nordenfelt in Stockholm) and Portugal (Ambassador Antonio Monteiro in New York). A Japanese representative will be named soon. The other diplomats are: Counselor Josep Papp of Hungary, who is based in Baghdad; Counselor Gheorghe Tarlescu of Romania, who is based in Baghdad; Ambassador Pietro Cordone of Italy, who is based in Rome; Ambassador Saeed Saad of Sudan, who is based in Khartoum; Ambassador Michael Bell of Canada, who is based in Cairo; and retired diplomat Horst Holthoff of Germany, who lives in Bonn. The new teams will operate under the original procedures established by UNSCOM and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) -- which visits the nuclear sites -- when the inspections began seven years ago. Inspections of the presidential sites will be under the direction of regular U.N. weapons inspectors and will include two observers. However, under the new arrangements, when UNSCOM or IAEA decide to visit a presidential site, at least two senior diplomatic representatives will be called upon by Dhanapala to accompany the weapons experts. Dhanapala, himself, will accompany the teams on their initial, or "baseline," inspections. The functions of the senior diplomats will be to observe that the provisions of the Memorandum of Understanding signed by Secretary General Kofi Annan and Iraq and the specific detailed procedures are being implemented in good faith; and to "report on any matter they deem appropriate to the functions of the diplomatic observers," according to the procedures. (For more information on this subject, contact our special Iraq website at: http://www.usia.gov/iraq)
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