UNMOVIC Office to Remain Open

The Cyprus office of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission will remain open for now, the Xinhua News Agency reported today (see GSN, June 9).

Government spokesman Kypros Chrysostomides was quoted by the Cyprus News Agency as saying the office open was kept open at the request of the United Nations. 

The U.N. agency was responsible for verifying Iraq’s WMD disarmament following the 1991 Gulf War. UNMOVIC personnel left Iraq before the March 2003 invasion and have not been allowed to return. The commission has continued to monitor sites sealed before the war, according to Xinhua.

The commission’s Cyprus office was opened in 2002 under an agreement between the United Nations, Cyprus and the International Atomic Energy Agency. It has a five-person staff.

The office is expected to remain open until the United Nations resolves the issue of weapons inspections in Iraq, Xinhua reported (Xinhua News Agency/People’s Daily Online, Dec. 6).

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