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Annan Says UN Is "Overstretched" by Global Conflicts •
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Annan Warns Against Conflict With Iran
The Associated Press
Thursday 20 March 2008
New York - Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned Thursday that military
action against Iran would be "a real disaster" and said the Middle East could
explode if the international community doesn't handle the many conflicts in
the region very carefully.
He also said there was "quite a bit of hypocrisy on all sides" in trying
to resolve the five-year conflict in Sudan's Darfur region - especially in
encouraging the African Union to take on peacekeeping when it didn't have the
resources.
At a wide-ranging round-table with journalists, Annan said he didn't have enough
information to comment on the justification for the U.N. Security Council's
demand that Iran suspend uranium enrichment until it allays suspicions its nuclear
program is trying to produce weapons. Tehran insists the program is peaceful,
aimed only at using nuclear power to generate electricity.
Annan said he had told Iranian leaders that "if indeed you have nothing to
hide and you are not making a bomb and your intentions are pacific, open your
doors, let the inspectors come, let them go anywhere - find a way of reassuring
the world, not just the U.S."
Asked how the international community should deal with Iran, he said dialogue
was the only way.
"We cannot, I'm sure, take on another military action in Iran, and I hope
no one is contemplating it. It would be a real disaster," he said.
Calling the broader Middle East "a very dangerous region," Annan said that
"many conflicts have converged and are feeding off each other, and the international
community has to handle that situation very carefully because any miscalculation
can lead to very serious explosions."
He said Lebanon's political crisis and inability to elect a president was "very
worrying," adding that it was a bit like the infighting among the Palestinians,
which pits the Fatah movement of President Mahmoud Abbas against the Islamic
militants of Hamas.
Annan also cited the dangers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Sunni-Shiite
divide in Iraq and other Mideast countries, and unrest in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
On Darfur, he criticized wealthy nations with well-equipped militaries for
refusing to provide essential helicopters for the joint U.N.-African Union force
that took over peacekeeping there early this year.
He urged U.N. member states to heed the warning of peacekeeping chief Jean-Marie
Guehenno that the world body's peacekeeping operations are overstretched with
more than 100,000 troops in the field.
"I don't think the U.N. is in a position today to go and take over in Afghanistan,"
he said. "I don't think the U.N. will get the resources to go and play a major
and active role in Somalia. We are already struggling to get the resources for
Darfur, where some have declared it a genocide."
Annan was in New York to receive the first MacArthur Award for International
Justice from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. As U.N. secretary-general,
he promoted the concept of an international "responsibility to protect" that
was adopted by world leaders at a 2005 summit.
He said his recent successful mediation after Kenya's post-election violence
"was a hopeful example" of putting this responsibility into practice.
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Annan Says UN Is "Overstretched" by Global Conflicts
By Warren Hoge
The New York Times
Friday 21 March 2008
United Nations - Kofi Annan, the former secretary general, said Thursday
that the United Nations was "overstretched" in conflict areas and
should resist taking on new responsibilities as long as major powers proved
unwilling to supply needed support.
"I don't think the U.N. is in a position today to go in and take
over in Afghanistan; I don't think the U.N. will get the resources to
play a major and active role in Somalia," he said. "We are already
struggling to get the resources in Darfur, where some have declared it a genocide."
The United Nations, he said, must make clear what it can and cannot do. "To
create the impression of action when nothing is happening is, I think, more
damaging," he said, in a conversation with journalists who cover the United
Nations.
On the issue of Iran's nuclear program, he said he backed Security Council
resolutions putting pressure on its government to stop enrichment of uranium,
but he warned that taking military steps to prevent Iran from building nuclear
weapons would be "a real disaster." He said, "We cannot, I
am sure, take another military action, in Iran, and I hope no one is contemplating
it."
It was Mr. Annan's first conversation with United Nations journalists
since completing his second five-year term in office on Dec. 31, 2006. He divides
his time between Geneva and his native Ghana and was in New York to receive
an international justice award from the MacArthur Foundation at the Waldorf-Astoria
hotel on Thursday evening.
He said the United Nations' current difficulties in trying to get 26,000
peacekeeping troops into Darfur, the troubled Sudan region, to replace an underequipped
7,000-member African Union force illustrated the quandary that the organization
faced. "We have these conflicts where no one really wants to get involved,
powerful countries with means will not touch it with a barge pole, they will
support weak, ineffectual initiatives by others, sometimes by a subregional
or regional organization, to create the impression of action," he said.
"I can understand why some countries will not put troops on the ground
in Darfur for reasons I think we can accept," he said. "But I cannot
understand why they cannot spare a couple of helicopters." The United
Nations says the force needs 24 helicopters to patrol the vast Darfur area,
but thus far no country has responded to repeated requests for them from the
current secretary general, Ban Ki-moon.
Mr. Annan was asked about Mr. Ban's preference for one-on-one negotiations
with foreign leaders in private and free of public comment in contrast to his
own practice of making broad statements on international responsibilities. "I
did it my way, and I think he should do it his way," Mr. Annan said. "But
I believe there is a bully pulpit that a secretary general should use."
He was also asked about the perception of some member states that Mr. Ban was
overly influenced by the United States. Mr. Annan came to office a favorite
of Washington but fell out of favor with the Bush administration after the Security
Council refused in 2003 to endorse the invasion of Iraq. He later said the war
violated international law.
"Almost every secretary general at one point or the other is perceived
as close to the Americans and at another point fighting the Americans with their
daggers drawn," Mr. Annan said. "It comes with the territory."
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