On
Syria, UNclear
if Liaison
Office Needs
UNSC, Jet Not
Seen by DPKO
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 15 --
The day before
the UN
Security
Council
belatedly
meets about
Syria and its
"suspended"
observer
mission there,
August's
president of
the Council
Gerard Araud
of
France late
Wednesday
morning told
the press that
"tomorrow
we'll see if
it's possible
to have a
consensus
around having
a
liaison office
of the joint
special envoy
in Damascus."
For
this, it
doesn't seem
that any
Security
Council action
would be
necessary,
since the
Joint Special
Envoy of Joint
between the
Secretaries
General of the
UN and Arab
League, and
was called for
by
the General
Assembly.
Inner
City Press
went to
Wednesday's UN
noon briefing
and
asked Ban
Ki-moon's
deputy
spokesman
Eduardo Del
Buey about
this, if the
Secretariat
took the
position that
Security
Council
approval would
be
needed to
establish a
JSE liaison
office on
Damascus.
Del
Buey said he
didn't know
the
"legalities"
of it, but
that
"we'll be
watching what
the Security
Council does."
As,
apparently,
will Lakhdar
Brahimi. Call
him the Hamlet
of Homs.
Inner
City Press
also asked Del
Buey if the UN
can confirm or
deny that the
Free Syrian
Army shot down
a Syrian jet
-- if so, with
what weapon?
But
Del Buey
insisted that
the UNSMIS
mission has
been
"suspended."
Inner City
Press pointed
out that even
after the
dismantling by
French DPKO
chief Herve
Ladsous there
are still 100
observers of
the
country, and
there have
been recent
visits to Homs
and Al Rastan
by
Babacar Gaye,
the
replacement
for Robert
Mood who quit
even before
Kofi Annan
did.
Del
Buey again
said the
mission is
suspended. But
didn't Mood
talk about
the Mission's
"contacts on
the ground"?
Is it that
Ladsous'
DPKO can't
report,
or
doesn't want
to report any
more? Watch
this site.
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