UN official due on Monday to follow up Iraq-kuwait issues

Both govts determined to open a new page in ties: Bayati

UNITED NATIONS, March 3, (KUNA): UN official Victor Poliakov, who took care of the missing Kuwaitis and property files in the UN Secretariat since the eighties, will discuss the issues in Kuwait Monday with government officials, KUNA learned late Saturday.

Poliakov was appointed by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon recently to temporarily follow up these two humanitarian files until the Security Council decides by June on how to proceed, after the High-Level Coordinator Gennady Tarasov left his office in late December.

Ban offered the Council in a report last December a number of options to choose from on how to fill until June the vacuum created by Tarasov’s departure.

The options include replacing Tarasov with another full-time coordinator, appointing an interim coordinator, asking someone from the UN to assume the mandate until the files are closed, or allowing the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) to take over the files.

When the council met in midDecember, it did not agree on any of the options, and therefore did not allow the mandate to be financed until a final decision is made.

While Russia wanted Tarasov to be replaced by another Russian, Western countries wanted the files to be handled by the UN Secretariat until the files are closed once and for all. Ban had personally wanted UNAMI to handle the files.

Since the council remained deadlocked on the way forward, Ban wrote to the council late last month informing its members that he has mandated Poliakov to “temporarily follow up the dossiers” until the council decides on how to proceed when it meets again on the issues next June.

A UN diplomat told KUNA that the recent improvement in the Kuwait-Iraq relations will definitely have an impact on the council’s decision in June. He also said that the next few months will be a test for Iraq to prove to the international community that it means business and is serious about closing the files once and for all.

Iraqi Ambassador Hamid Al-Bayati told KUNA that some of the files, such as the maintenance of border posts and maritime navigation, will be dealt with bilaterally with Kuwait in the future, expressing satisfaction that the legal issues between Kuwait Airways and its Iraqi sister company have now been resolved.

“Both governments are determined to solve all outstanding issues and to open a new page in the relations between the two brotherly neighbors — Iraq and Kuwait,” he said.