The Special Representative
of the Secretary-General for Iraq this morning called on the Security
Council to demand that the Islamist forces that now controlled a third
of the country's territory cease all hostilities and atrocities and
ensure that the group’s "horrific terrorist acts" were held to account.
Nickolay Mladenov,
who is also the head of United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq
(UNAMI), asked the Council to call on Member States for support to Iraq
in facing its current challenges, including efforts to contain the
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS, also referred to as ISIL),
but he stressed that the solution could not be found “in the toolbox of
military operations”.
"From a splinter group of
Al-Qaida, ISIL, today, has grown to be a complex threat to peace and
security in Iraq, the entire region and beyond," Mr. Mladenov, said via video-teleconference from Baghdad in a meeting that also heard from Iraq's representative.
Introducing the Secretary-General's latest report on UNAMI (document S/2014/480), Mr. Mladenov
said that ISIL aimed to establish a permanent foothold beyond the
control of authorities through terror and sought to radicalize people
and undermine the Government by exploiting legitimate grievances and
manipulating divisions within society.
ISIL, he continued, had
been joined in an alliance of convenience by a number of other groups
with different goals, including former Ba'athi
militants and Sunni tribes. Together, they had battled Iraqi security
forces and captured large portions of the Governorates of Niew, Anbar, Salaheddine, Kirkuk and parts of Diayala, threatening vital infrastructure including the Beiji refinery.
He described the persecutions imposed on minorities in the Ninewa
Province, including the ultimatum for Christians to convert, pay a
tax, leave or face execution, and the systematic abductions, killings
and destruction of property faced by Shias, Turkomen, Yazidis and Shabaks.
Since the beginning of the
year, he said, an estimated 1.2 million Iraqis had lost their homes,
with millions more trapped by fighting. The United Nations had
identified over 1,600 sites of displacement, where access to necessities
remained challenging. The Kurdistan region alone now hosted over
300,000 newly displaced who joined the more than 225,000 Syrian refugees
already there.
He thanked Member States
for their humanitarian assistance while appealing for further aid, and
commended the thousands of host families across Iraq and all Iraqi
officials who were involved in the response. He pledged that the
Organization would continue to address the urgent needs of the
displaced, and would spare no effort to reach all affected, "no matter
where they are".
The Mission in Iraq, he
said, also continued to advocate for the protection of civilians in the
country, nevertheless, between January and June of this year 5,500 were
killed and 12,000 wounded. Further, almost 900 were killed in July
alone, including many children, and there had been suffering due to
human rights violations, much of it targeted against women.
He called on all actors to
ensure that human rights standards were respected and that the
Government hold violators to account. Means for civilians to flee the
violence and access for humanitarian aid must be guaranteed. Any plan
to re-establish security and Government control must be accepted across
the societal divides of Iraq and implemented in cooperation with the
Kurdistan Regional Government. All should stand together against
terrorism, but the concerns of all communities must be addressed without
exception.
In that vein, demands from
Sunnis and others that are constitutionally sound and the impasse
between Baghdad and Erbil must be addressed, he said, calling on
Kurdish Members of Parliament to continue to engage in the political
process and for political leaders to refrain from provocative
statements. The Mission, he pledged, stood ready to provide good
offices and legal and technical support.
To engage all communities,
the momentum generated by the legislative elections must now translate
into the election of a new President and Government. “ Iraq cannot
afford a protracted government-formation process,” he stated. It must
receive regional and international support to face ISIL and other
challenges.
Mr. Mladenov also introduced the Secretary-General’s third report (document S/2014/485)
on the issues of missing Kuwaiti and third country nationals and
missing Kuwaiti property, stemming from Iran’s invasion of Kuwait in
1990.
Iraq’s relations with
Kuwait continued to show signs of improvement, he said, with the major
obstacle to full resolution of all issues being the current instability
in Iraq. UNAMI stood ready to facilitate more contacts between the
two countries.
Following Mr. Mladenov’s presentation, Iraq’s permanent representative, Mohamed Ali Alhakim,
said the Secretary-General’s visit tomorrow demonstrated the constant
support of the United Nations to his country’s building of democratic
institutions and a national unity government.
Notwithstanding terrorist
attacks, he said, the political process was in “full swing”, with the
completion of the third round of elections that had been held according
to international standards. Over 13 million Iraqis had defied security
difficulties to participate. On 1 July, the Parliament held its first
meeting and on 15 July that body’s first speaker was elected...
He recalled, however, that
he had previously warned the Security Council of the terrorist threat
to the region that was emanating from the Syrian conflict with the
advent of ISIS and Al-Nusra. That threat
had become reality with armed groups crossing the border from Syria
into Iraq. Those groups were being supported, both militarily and
financially, by outside parties.
He described the violence
that was occurring in the territory now occupied by such terrorist
groups, including the abductions of diplomats and the massacres and
executions of civilians and other captives. Because of that, a mass
exodus of millions of people had fled the area.
He thanked the Security Council for their 21 July statement condemning ISIS’s
persecution of minorities and for the report by the High Commissioner
of Human Rights confirming the flagrant violations by ISIS.
He stressed that the
stability of his Government was important to the region's stability,
noting the restoration of diplomatic relations with Kuwait and the
signing of bilateral economic and legal agreements with Egypt and
Iran. Security needed to be established with both international and
regional cooperation.
Warning the Council that ISIS’s
expansion was undermining the region and threatening international
peace and security, he reiterated his appeal to Member States to
cooperate with Iraq to fight terrorism together. Without that
solidarity, the support of the Council would remain ineffective. He
also requested the extension of UNAMI for another year.
The meeting began at 10:50 a.m. and ended at 11:30 a.m.