Annan to Send Election Assessment Team to Iraq

[papau]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&ncid=578&e=3&u=/nm/20040127/ts_nm/iraq_dc

Annan to Send Election Assessment Team to Iraq

By Mark John
PARIS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday he would send a team to Iraq, security permitting, to see if elections can be held before a mid-year power transfer, as a revered Shi'ite cleric has demanded.

Iraq's most powerful Shi'ite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has demanded direct elections, challenging a U.S. plan for transferring power to Iraqis by June 30.

But Sistani has left open a narrow window for compromise by hinting, through aides, that he would respect a U.N. verdict.

"I have concluded that the United Nations can play a constructive role in helping to break the current impasse," Annan said in a statement released during a visit to Paris.

"The mission will ascertain the views of a broad spectrum of Iraqi society in the search for alternatives that might be developed to move forward to the formation of a provisional government," Annan's statement said. <snip>


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=716&e=5&u=/ap/20040127/ap_on_re_mi_ea/annan_iraq

U.N. Says It's Willing to Go to Iraq

By PAMELA SAMPSON, Associated Press Writer
PARIS - The United Nations will send a team to Iraq to determine whether elections should be held once the U.S.-led coalition authority can guarantee the mission's safety, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday. <snip>
The United Nations said Friday that a two-person team had arrived in Baghdad for talks with the coalition on various security matters. It was the first time foreign U.N. staff had returned to Baghdad since Annan withdrew personnel in October. <snip>