Annan set to meet with Iraqi, coalition officials on UN's future role16 January – Secretary-General Kofi Annan is set to meet on Monday in New York with officials from Iraq and the United States-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) for talks on the future role of the United Nations in the country.
Mr. Annan first proposed the three-way talks last month when he said that he hoped the parties could "sit to clarify what assistance and what role the UN can play and what they expect of us."
"It has to be a three-way conversation and clarification" among the Governing Council, the CPA and the UN, he said then. "Once we have that, I will make a judgment whether we can take on that role and if so, how and where and under what circumstances."
The programme on 19 January at UN Headquarters is slated to begin at 9 a.m., when the Secretary-General is to meet the Governing Council delegation - led by Adnan Pachachi, its President for January - in his office before receiving the CPA group a half-hour later.
The talks will then begin at 10 a.m., and the Secretary-General is expected to hold a press conference afterwards to summarize the discussions.
The Security Council has scheduled its own meeting with Mr. Annan and the Iraqi delegation at 5 p.m.
Asked today how the Secretary-General viewed the relationship among the three parties, UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said the fact that the three sides would sit down together is "an encouraging sign that we're beginning to work more inclusively."
He added that it was not going to be easy to achieve the scheduled transfer of sovereignty by 30 June, but all sides wanted to see that goal reached. "This is the beginning of what we hope will become a fruitful dialogue on how best to achieve that objective that we all agree on," he said.
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