At UN, Friends on Myanmar Meet Amid UK Posturing, China Intransigence, Ban Answers?
UNITED NATIONS, March 25, updated below — Myanmar is the topic of a closed door meeting this morning in the UN’s new three story building by the East River here, the day after the UK raised Burma in the Security Council, only to have China call it a “sovereign state that must be respected.” We will live blog here from outside the meeting.
On the run up to this meeting of the Group of on Myanmar meeting, two senior UN officials portrayed the UK and Gordon Brown as opportunistic, trying to take domestic credit for the meeting which was already planned before Gordon Brown requested it. “He did the same thing after Cyclone Nargis,” one of the officials said to Inner City Press. “He knew the Secretary General was going, so he called for him to go.”
The other official told Inner City Press that the UN has advised Myanmar to get better at public relations at the UN. “But they are a military regime, very military minded,” the official lamented. The UN would like to rehabilitate their image if not their practices.
The Group of Friends of the Secretary General on Myanmar begins meeting at 10 a.m. in the UN’s new North Lawn building, followed by a televised stakeout on the building’s second floor. We will live blog it below.
http://www.innercitypress.com/unfr1myan032510.html
