Kofi Annan
Kofi Annan
Kofi Atta Annanis a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations from January 1997 to December 2006. Annan and the United Nations were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize "for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world." He is the founder and the Chairman of the Kofi Annan Foundation, as well as being the chairman of The Elders, a group founded by Nelson Mandela...
NationalityGhanaian
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth8 April 1938
CityKumasi, Ghana
CountryGhana
The need for reconciliation in Iraq is real. If we do not reconcile the parties in Iraq, elections alone are not going to resolve their problems,
It is the plight of the Iraqi people which is now my most immediate concern.
At the same time, we have seen Iraqi prisoners disgracefully abused.
The issue is not the acceptance, but the performance on the ground, ... So let the inspectors go in, and I urge the Iraqis to cooperate with them and to perform, and I think that is the real test we are waiting for.
We have a clear mandate from the Security Council to do whatever we can to work with the government and the people of Iraq to make sure Iraq takes charge of its own future and develops a stable peaceful society,
Opinions among Iraqis differed widely, as they still do, about the reasons for the foreign military presence in their country,
a new era of human rights in Iraq will now begin.
Leaders in the region remain engaged in the process of convincing President Saddam and the Iraqi leadership to disarm and cooperate with inspectors,
If Iraq were to break the agreement, it would be much easier to get an agreement in the council to take military action,
Obviously some of the efforts are being made to improve the conditions of the Iraqi people and make sure that the sanctions do not harm them. But if Iraq were to turn off the taps, then we'll be in a very serious situation,
As we move forward, we hope we will be able to work with the Iraqis and the coalition to find a mechanism for establishing a caretaker or an interim government until such time elections are organized,
They are concerned about the Iraqi population and civilian casualties. They are also anxious that assistance should get to the cities and to the people as soon as possible. But of course, they are worried as to how all this is going to turn out, which nobody really knows.
would be insufficient to address, even as a temporary measure, all the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people.
Iraq holds America and Australia fully responsible for such provocative acts that endanger civil marine navigation in the Arab Gulf,