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UN as co-chair: Lanka says ‘no thanks’
From Thalif Deen at the United Nations
The Sri Lankan government has rejected an unsolicited offer by the United Nations to be one of the co-chairs of the donors' meeting for post-war reconstruction in the country.

On instructions from the Foreign Ministry, the Sri Lanka mission has told the UN Secretariat that the government remains satisfied with the present arrangement and sees no need for a change or an additional co-chair. The current co-chairs are Japan, Norway, the United States and the 25-member European Union.

A knowledgeable UN source told the Sunday Times that since the donors' meetings were linked to the ongoing peace process, the UN was obviously trying to make its presence felt as a political trouble-shooter. If the government had accepted the offer, the UN was expected to name a special representative, Iqbal Riza of Pakistan, to be one of the co-chairs. Mr. Riza, a veteran UN official, retired last month as Chief of Staff to Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The development comes in the wake of the recent furore over a statement issued by Mr. Annan condemning the assassination of LTTE's eastern political leader E. Kaushalyan. The Government's concern was personally conveyed to UN Assistant Secretary General Danilo Turk by Sri Lanka's UN envoy Bernard Goonetilleke.

The UN Secretary General's statement was considered inappropriate as he rarely, if ever, condemns the killings of rebel leaders and certainly not members of a designated 'terrorist organisation'.

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