On
Syria, As P5 +
Morocco
Stalls, Pay
for Annan Team
and Doss "Not
the Focus," UN
Stonewalls,
"Living on
Mars"
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
March 9 -- The
Permanent Five
members of the
UN Security
Council, plus
Morocco for
the Arab
League, met
for nearly
three hours
about Syria on
Thursday,
after which
Russia's
Ambassador
Vitaly
Churkin told
Inner City
Press, "No
breakthrough."
Now
Inner City
Press has
learned more
about the
meeting, and
the status of
the US
drafted
resolution. A
well placed
source tells
Inner City
Press that
first China
suggested
amendments,
then Russia,
including on
the
contentious
issue of who
would stop
fighting and
pull out of
towns
first.
The
US draft would
have Assad's
forces
stopping and
pulling out.
Others think
that is an
invitation for
opposition
"take over" of
towns. And so
the
draft is
stalled, with
some hoping
that the
presence in
New York on
Monday, March
12 of Russian
foreign
minister
Lavrov, along
with among
others his
counterparts
Alain Juppe,
William Hague
and Hilary
Clinton, might
change things.
The
source
predicted that
envoy Kofi
Annan will be
able to meet
with Bashar al
Assad, and
said that the
choice of
Palestine's
former foreign
minister
Nasser
al-Qudwa was
not without
push-back from
at least one
Permanent Five
member of the
Security
Council.
Others say
that Nasser
al-Qudwa
aspires to
replace
Mahmoud Abbas
and will be
distracted.
Inner
City Press
at Friday's UN
noon briefing
asked a simple
question: who
else is on
Kofi Annan's
team and who
is paying
them? Plainly
visible in
television
footage from
Cairo was
former UN
official Alan
Doss, who
left in the
midst of a
nepotism
scandal. [Click here for
the Doss story.]
Is the UN,
whose
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon never
acted on the
Office of
Internal
Oversight
Services
report on Doss
because Doss
retired, now
paying Doss
again? Video
here, from
Minute 5:05.
Ban's
spokesman
Nesirky
refused to ask
the question,
saying that's
not the focus.
Answering
questions
about money
and
accountability
is rarely
the
focus in Ban's
UN.
Inner City
Press asked
Nesirky for
the UN's
response to
the Syrian
opposition's
comment that
Annan, with
his call for
dialogue, is
"living on
Mars." Nesirky
did not
respond to
this, either
-- apparently
that's not the
focus either.
Watch this
site.
, 
