CAIRO: At the fourth annual Nadia Younes Memorial Lecture, Secretary-General of the Arab League Amr Moussa discussed the role of the United Nations, saying the misconceptions that surround it resulted in Younes’ death as well as other conflicts in the region.
“Nadia wanted to rebuild the UN credibility worldwide, this is what she worked for, this is what she died for [.] the UN is the focal point of the international community, instead of being appointed to manage crises like in Iraq, it should be supported and defended, he said.
The lecture titled “A Tribute to Nadia Younes: Achieving Reconciliation in Iraq and Stability in our Region, was held at the American University in Cairo Saturday.
“Today’s international career faces many changes, and higher risks [.] Nadia passed away when the UN role became controversial, Moussa said.
Younes was serving as the chief of staff for Sergio Vieira de Mello, the United Nations Special Representative in Iraq when she was killed during the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad. Known for her extraordinary efforts during her 30-year long career for the United Nations, Younes remains to her colleagues a great loss to the war.
“It is sad that the only time I publicly speak about Nadia is in an occasion of remembrance, Moussa said.
Moussa attributed tension in the Middle East to the Arab-Israeli conflict, which he identified as the root cause.
“The more days pass by, I feel more and more that my generation will not solve the issue in a way that ensures peace, so I’m afraid that [the new generation] will be faced by it. We have failed through the continuous management of this crisis until it became chronic and almost impossible to resolve, he warned.
Moussa also stated that instability in Iraqi is due to foreign presence in the country, and that the Arab League calls for an “Arab solution. When asked to define the broad expression, a hesitant and perplexed Moussa told Daily News Egypt that “the Arab world is indeed a mosaic, and it’s difficult to define the Arab world. The term just implies that Iraq cannot be extracted from the Arab world and marginalized as a separate entity.
“Hope is on the horizon, he said, as the Arab League’s member states’ leaders are set to congregate with head officials of the United States to discuss the tensions in the Middle East.
“First of all we will never accept open-ended peace process again, and this is why we are more hopeful; because President Obama acknowledged the need for a specific time schedule because we are eager to move on, we are eager to establish peace, but not just for any price [.] the next few months are crucial, we will either achieve peace, or suffer the consequences of yet another failure, and if we don’t succeed, it will be like handing over this issue to the new generation, and this is why I am here, to describe what this young generation might have to face, he concluded.
