By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
November 1 --
The UN's envoy
on Syria
Lakhdar
Brahimi was
asked, "after
Saudi Arabia
refused to
receive you;"
he called it a
speech, not a
question," but
did not
confirm or
deny that the
Saudis
declined to
receive him.
So
Inner
City Press
asked UN
spokesperson
Martin Nesirky
on November 1
to confirm or
deny
(video
here and
embedded
below)
Inner
City
Press: one of
the questions
that Mr.
Brahimi was
asked in his
press
conference in
Damascus was
about Saudi
Arabia
refusing his
request to
visit. And he
said it was a
speech and not
a question,
but as I read
it, I didn’t
see him say
yes or no. Can
you say
whether he
asked to visit
Saudi Arabia
and whether
this request
was denied, as
the question
has it?
Spokesperson:
Well, with the
greatest
respect,
Matthew, if
Mr. Brahimi
didn’t answer
the question,
I don’t think
you’d expect
that I would.
Inner
City
Press: It
seems
important…
Particularly
since
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon
praised Saudi
Arabia so
effusively
after they
said they
wouldn't be
taking the
Security
Council seat
they without
competition
won.
In
other
transcript
games, when
Iraq's Prime
Minister
Maliki spoke
to the media
with US
President
Obama, the
White House's
foreign pool
report by
Nadia
Bilbassy-charters
of Al-Arabiya
said that
Maliki
"denounced the
use of
chemical
weapons that
were used both
in Iraq under
Saddam Hussain
and in Syria
by President
Assad."
The
last part of
this seemed
dubious. And
lo and behold,
when the
transcript
came out,
Maliki
actually said
we "want to
avoid the use
of chemical
weapons,
because we and
the Syrians
suffered a lot
from these
weapons." That
is, not
that Assad had
used them.
On the
allegation
that it was
the opposition
that used
chemical
weapons, for
example in
Khan al Asal,
the UN as
Inner City
Press gleaned
and screened
yesterday
the UN
has pushed
back its
report from
late October a
full month to
early December.
The UN still
hasn't
explained why.
Watch this
site.
, 
