Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the Inner City to Wall Street to the United Nations

At UN, Pillay Under Middle East but Include Libya, Annan's Ultimatum Target?

By Matthew Russell Lee, Partial exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, June 26 -- The spat Tuesday morning between France's Gerard Araud and Russia's Vitaly Churkin about whether and how Libya will figure in the Syria Security Council briefing by High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay was quietly resolved by Tuesday afternoon, sources exclusively told Inner City Press.

  Pillay's briefing will be under the Middle East agenda item: that is, Syria. But, the sources tell Inner City Press, Pillay will be told that some Council members also want to hear about Libya, and she will make some part of her presentation about Libya. Thus each side can say that they won.

  More complicated is who is being pressured by Kofi Annan through his Deputy Al-Kidwa's ultimatum, first reported by Inner City Press, that if there is not a positive outcome from the June 30 session in Geneva, Annan might just stop.

  Some read it as pressure on Russia to agree to a political transition away from Assad, which seems unlikely. On the other hand, his ultimatum puts pressure on Western and Gulf country to at least go to Geneva -- unless, of course, they WANT Annan to stop. Watch this site.