Christoph
04-12-06, 22:09
The outgoing UN secretary general Kofi Annan gave his last BBC interview to Lyse Doucet. He is due to step down on 31 December when he will be succeeded by South Korea's foreign minister Ban Ki-moon. Below is an excerpt from the interview:
BBC: Was the invasion of Iraq in 2003, without a Security Council resolution, the most difficult point for you in your term?
Kofi Annan: It was extremely difficult, because I really believed that we could have stopped the war and that if we had worked a bit harder - given the inspectors a bit more time - we could have.
I was also concerned that for the US and its coalition to go to war without the consent of the Council in that particular region, which has always been extremely controversial, would be extremely difficult and very divisive and that it would take quite a long time to put the organisation back together, and of course it divided the world too.
It is healing but we are not there yet. It hasn't healed yet and we feel the tension still in this organisation as a result of that.
Rest of the interview HERE (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/6205056.stm)
BBC: Was the invasion of Iraq in 2003, without a Security Council resolution, the most difficult point for you in your term?
Kofi Annan: It was extremely difficult, because I really believed that we could have stopped the war and that if we had worked a bit harder - given the inspectors a bit more time - we could have.
I was also concerned that for the US and its coalition to go to war without the consent of the Council in that particular region, which has always been extremely controversial, would be extremely difficult and very divisive and that it would take quite a long time to put the organisation back together, and of course it divided the world too.
It is healing but we are not there yet. It hasn't healed yet and we feel the tension still in this organisation as a result of that.
Rest of the interview HERE (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/6205056.stm)