In
UN Security
Council Affairs,
Mosves Abelian Replaces Norma Chan As Top Staffer on April 4 Amid No
Fly Talk
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
March 10 -- The UN Security Council Affairs top post was
finally filled on Thursday, by former Armenian Ambassador and UN
Budget Committee secretary Movses Abelian. Sources
tell Inner City Press he starts on April 4.
He will replace Norma
Chan, who after receiving plaudits at her retirement came back on an
emergency basis when Horst
Heitmann was moved to head the UN Department of Political Affairs
unit on the Middle East, after being disciplined by DPA chief Lynn
Pascoe.
The
Security
Council Affairs post is an important one, advising the rotating
president of the Security Council on procedural and even substantive
questions. The SCA unit has been in some turmoil, with Pascoe issuing
displinary memos to file against two officials, as Inner City Press
exclusively reported.
Abelian at UN in 2001, budget time and SCA not yet shown
Abelian,
who has
told Inner City Press to watch how he got things done in the Fifth
Committee of the General Assembly, takes the post amid much talk but
little action on a Libya no-fly zone. And now Abelian is in.
Watch this site.
* * *
At
UN,
Portugal
Will
Chair Libya Sanctions Committee, Hopes To Never
Staff It
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee,
Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS,
March
3
-- Portugal will chair the Libya Sanctions Committee
of the UN Security Council, Inner City Press is informed. The formal
decision will come on Tuesday, March 8.
The
hope, the
source said, is that “it will be a short term committee” and that
“the need for sanctions will disappear.”
Inner
City
Press
had
earlier heard, from a UN sanctions source, that the Libya
Sanctions Committee would not even be staffed.
The
source said
that it take one or two months to appoint a group of experts, and the
hope is that by that time, there will be no need: that is, Gadhafi
will be gone.
Portugal's Perm Rep meets Ban, staffing of
Libya Sanctions committee not shown
For
now, the
process is for the decision to be formalized at the Council's next
session on March 8. Then the chair, Portugal's Permanent
Representative to the UN Jose Filipe Mendes Moraes Cabral, will
consult with other Council members and draft a letter to all member
states about their Libya sanctions obligations.
The process of
appointing experts will begin, but they are hoping it will never be
completed. We'll see.
* * *
At
UN,
Libyan
Dabbashi
Predicts Inaction by UN on Gadhafi's Ouster
Letter, Visa & Shalgam Questions
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee,
Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS,
March
3
-- Hours after the UN confirmed receiving a letter
from the Gadhafi government to withdraw the credentials of
Ambassadors Ibrahim Dabbashi and Shalgam, Inner City Press asked
Dabbashi what he thought the UN would do.
“Nothing,”
Dabbashi said. “The regime is already illegitimate.”
But
while a
senior UN official on Wednesday night told Inner City Press about the
letter and the possibility of referring it to the UN Office of Legal
Affairs for a long consideration, others say it is an open and shut
case. Gadhafi is still viewed the UN as the head of state, and his
government gets to choose who represents him at the UN.
“Even though
we'd have to hold our nose,” a well placed Secretariat official
told Inner City Press, “the principle is bigger than this one
case.”
The
principle is
that each country has one recognized head of state -- even if like
Alassane Ouattara in Cote d'Ivoire they control only a single hotel
-- and that person chooses their representatives.
Dabbashi at UN microphone, Gadhafi's letter not shown
Others
have
guessed
that
the United States could try to deny visas for any new
diplomats whom Gadhafi might send. But under the US' Host Country
Agreement with the United Nations, the US has to allow in people
accredited to the UN.
At most the
US can impose resistrictions on
them such as not being able to travel more than 25 miles from
Columbus Circle, or not being able to visit Ground Zero.
So
despite
Dabbashi's statement, it seems clear that through time, if Gadhafi is
not ousted, Shalgam and Dabbashi will be, from the UN. The US, one
assumes, won't revoke their visas and make them go back to a
Gadhafi-fun Libya....
At Thursday's
noon briefing, Inner City Press asked UN Spokesman Martin Nesirky to
confirm receipt of Gadhafi's letter. Nesirky confirmed it and said it
is being studied. He said he didn't know the date on the letter, since
he hadn't actually seen the letter.
Footnote:
Shalgam
is
being
sought to explain his role in a deal struck between
Italy, Gadhafi and Saddan Hussein, under which Saddam would have been
given asylum in Libya. Shalgam is head to have cut the deal in Rome.
Then, the US is said to have intervened with Gadhafi to stop it.
Might this give Shalgam some leverage? Might he want to talk about it
more at this time? Watch this site.
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