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UN will need to review presence in Iraq: Tharoor
London, Aug 20: UN under-secretary general Shashi Tharoor has said that the United Nations will have to review its presence in Iraq, after 17 people were killed in a blast that devastated the UN headquarters in Baghdad, including its top official in the country, Sergio Vieira de Mello.
London, Aug 20: UN under-secretary general Shashi Tharoor has said that the United Nations will have to review its presence in Iraq, after 17 people were killed in a blast that devastated the UN headquarters in Baghdad, including its top official in the country, Sergio Vieira de Mello.
Tharoor, UN under-secretary general for communications
and public information, told: "We will take stock. We don't want to react in a
panic or take decisions in haste."
"But we will certainly need to review our presence, our staff, our deployment patterns and see how effectively we can operate in a way that makes a difference ... given the security conditions in Iraq."
Tharoor added: "We want to ensure too that Sergio will not have died in vain and the cause for which he and other colleagues laid their lives down ... that cause must not be allowed to falter. We will find some way of carrying on."
Asked if the US would have to rethink how peace is secured in Iraq, he said: "Everybody will have to do some very hard thinking today and in the days to come. What we have seen points to a horror that no one ever wants to see repeated."
"Yes we do depend very much on some hard new thinking by those in control of the territory of Iraq who have the capacity and the military resources to try and handle these security challenges ahead of them."
Tharoor added: "Whoever did this is certainly no friend of the people of Iraq. These are people who in no way speak for the majority of political opinion or public opinion in that country."
"But we will certainly need to review our presence, our staff, our deployment patterns and see how effectively we can operate in a way that makes a difference ... given the security conditions in Iraq."
Tharoor added: "We want to ensure too that Sergio will not have died in vain and the cause for which he and other colleagues laid their lives down ... that cause must not be allowed to falter. We will find some way of carrying on."
Asked if the US would have to rethink how peace is secured in Iraq, he said: "Everybody will have to do some very hard thinking today and in the days to come. What we have seen points to a horror that no one ever wants to see repeated."
"Yes we do depend very much on some hard new thinking by those in control of the territory of Iraq who have the capacity and the military resources to try and handle these security challenges ahead of them."
Tharoor added: "Whoever did this is certainly no friend of the people of Iraq. These are people who in no way speak for the majority of political opinion or public opinion in that country."
Bureau Report