UN
Disarmament Chief Nakamitsu At
Sweden UNSC Retreat, UN Refuses
To Give Full List
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Follow Up to
Scoop
UNITED NATIONS,
April 20 – The UN Security
Council is in Sweden for a
retreat, accompanied by UN
Secretary General and, Inner
City Press first reported, UN
Disarmament chief Izumi
Nakamitsu, on the issues
of Douma and the Organization
for the Prevention of Chemical
Weapons. Inner City Press ran
into Nakamitsu after she had a
meeting preparing for the
retreat with Guterres and his
Political
(some say,
Cameroon)
adviser
Khassim
Diagne. The UN
Secretariat had
yet to release
a list of the
officials
it is bringing
to the
retreat, so this
report was a
scoop-lette.
On April 20,
Inner City
Press asked Guterres'
deputy
spokesman
Farhan Haq who
refused to
provide any
list. UN
transcript here: Inner
City Press:
the retreat,
the Security
Council
retreat in
Sweden.
Can you… can
you say who
the
Secretary-General
is taking? I
know he's
taking Ms.
[Izumi]
Nakamitsu, but
what are the
other USGs
[Under-Secretaries-General]
that… that are
going to the
event?
And are issues
like Myanmar
among those
that the
Secretary-General
intends to
raise?
Deputy
Spokesman:
There will be
a number of
issues on
peace and
security that
are of common
interest to
the
Secretary-General
and the
Security
Council that
will be
raised, but
we're not
going to
specify them
at this stage.
Inner
City Press:
But, how about
who's
going?
Shouldn't you
specify that?
Deputy
Spokesman:
Well, he has
different
members of
senior
officials of
his
team.
Again, this is
not something
that I'm going
to specify at
this
stage.
Some of the
key envoys
that are
involved will
be there, but
we'll provide
more of those
details at a
later point, I
imagine.
Inner
City Press:
And I saw his
letter in
March about
the retreat to
the Council,
said it was
going to be
about
coordination
or cooperation
with regional
organisations.
Has that… is
that still the
name of it, or
has this
changed at
this request
or at the
request of the
Council?
Deputy
Spokesman:
There's some
broad themes
that will be
taken up, but,
like I said,
there will
also be
different
issues of
peace and
security that
are of common
concern, as
there are in
other past
retreats.
Inner
City Press:
And just on…
Sweden has
said they're
paying the
cost of all
Security
Council
members for
the trip, but
they said that
the
Secretariat is
bearing its
own
cost.
Did they offer
to? How
much does…?
Deputy
Spokesman:
You have to
ask the
Swedes." Ask
Sweden
how much it
costs the UN?
Inner City
Press asked
Palestine's
Mansour if he
knew if UN
Envoy Mladenov
was going - it
seems not -
and has
questioned if
North Korea,
on which the
UN is
increasingly
marginalized,
will come up.
Sweden's
Deputy
Ambassador
Carl Skau's
joke the
previous day
about making
the Council
members sit
silent and
listen to
music, perhaps
Bach as Dag
Hammarskjold
famously did,
came up. But
what music?
Inner City
Press is
covering this.
At an April 18 press
conference Inner City Press
asked what seemed an obvious
journalistic question: who's
paying? Video here.
Sweden's
Deputy Ambassador Carl Skau
replied that Sweden will be
paying for all of the Security
Council members. And Guterres?
Skau said the costs of
Guterres and his team - again,
size and composition
undisclosed - will be borne by
the UN, that is to say,
the public. He used a
state visit to Stockholm to
justify this.
Inner City
Press asked, did any Security
Council member offer to pay
its own costs? No, it seems.
So Sweden will pay for all
countries on the divided
Security Council. So Swedes
know? Skau told Inner City
Press the financial
expenditure is “on the
website.” But it does not seem
to be on this one, entitled
“Sweden and the UN in
Figures.”
Soon it
was argued no harm no foul.
But could smaller countries
elected to the Security
Council afford to compete with
Sweden? We'll have more on
this - and on the retreat.
Watch this site.
***
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