REMARKS BY FRED ECKHARD
SPOKESMAN

UNITED NATIONS
Office of the Spokesman for the Secretary General

August 12, 2002

Excerpts

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Question:  Thank you, Fred.  Do you have any comment on the statement out of Iraq by Information Minister Mohammed Said El Sahaf that "inspections have finished in Iraq and that Iraq won't allow United Nations weapons inspectors back into their country?"

Spokesman:  No.  The last thing we said to Iraq officially was in the Secretary-General's letter to the Foreign Minister and we're still awaiting an official reply to that letter.  Yes, Elizabeth.

Question:  Is there a deadline to that specific reply?

Spokesman:  Not that I am aware of.  It's up to the Iraqis.  Robert, welcome back.

Question:  Does the United Nations have any position on the Iraqi suggestion of how their oil for food revenue should pay its arrears.  The UK and the United States object to this; as pointed out in the letter from the ambassador this morning.  Does the United Nations have a position on this?

Spokesman:  No.  That would be a matter for the Council, I would think, rather than for the Secretary-General.  Elizabeth.

Question:  Has the Secretary-General, you know, in his conversations with Secretary Powell, other Administration officials, gotten any indication of, a kind of informal deadline in Washington's mind, by which they would want to see talks with weapons inspectors reach a conclusion or not reach a conclusion?

Spokesman:  If he has, he hasn't shared them with me.

Question:  Because there is a report in some of the Arab paper out of London today that had quoted European sources quoting American sources saying that - immediately it sounds like a long string of connection.

Spokesman:  Okay.

Question:  But I think they probably all are from the same scuttlebutt from various people that they're saying that this has to come to a conclusion in a reasonable period of time.

Spokesman:  I can't confirm that.  You might ask the Americans.  Yes?

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Question:  According to the Iraqi question.  So, are you preparing for the war or you have a way for reconciliation?

Spokesman:  Well, we're not preparing for war.  We don't make war.  The Secretary-General is doing what he can as mediator between Iraq and the Security Council.

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