The UN Security Council and the Kuwaiti prisoners and missing in Iraq

Members of the UN Security Council on Thursday called on Iraq to reveal the fate of Kuwaitis and other persons of various nationalities missed since 1990.

News reports quoted the Ukraine ambassador and the chairman of the UN Security Council for the current month Valery Kotchinsky as saying to the press that the council's 15- member states urge Iraq to fully cooperate with all agencies and commissions concerned to this matter in order to attain a progress towards settling this humanitarian problem.

Kotchinsky added that the UN Security Council is intending to convene a meeting next month ( April) to discuss this matter which diplomats view as a main bulwark before the attempts made by Iraq to lift the sanctions imposed on its by the UN Security Council.

Kotchinsky read a statement urging Iraq to cooperate with a tripartite committee formed to know the fate of the Kuwaiti missing. The committee, which is boycotted by Iraq since the beginning of 1999, is chaired by Russia's former ambassador at the UN Yuli Foronotsov who could not visit Baghdad nor negotiate with Iraq towards this matter.