Thank you, Madam President. And thank you, Special Representative Hassan, for your informative briefing and for your stewardship of UNAMI’s drawdown pursuant to Resolution 2732.
The United States has consistently called for a smooth and orderly drawdown and is monitoring the process UNAMI has initiated to transfer tasks to the UN country team in appropriate areas.
The United States and other Council members have also affirmed that UNAMI still has important work to do before it concludes its mission.
In this regard, we remain committed to UNAMI’s continued advice, support, and technical assistance to Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission in support of Iraqi parliamentary elections scheduled for November 11.
We also believe UNAMI can play an important role in the repatriation and reintegration of Iraqi families from the al-Hol and Roj camps. We commend Iraq’s accelerated repatriations from northeast Syria since the beginning of the year and encourage all parties to continue apace.
UNAMI’s “good offices” role has also facilitated engagement between Iraq and Kuwait on outstanding issues, including the return of persons and property, consistent with UN Security Council Resolution 2107.
Given the importance of Iraq-Kuwait relations for regional stability, we encourage Iraq and Kuwait to agree on the modalities for an appropriate UN follow-on mechanism to resolve this humanitarian file before the conclusion of UNAMI’s mandate.
As we have previously made clear, the end of UNAMI’s mandate should not spell the end of these countries’ work on missing persons and property. In particular, more work is needed to identify and locate the remains of missing Kuwaitis as well as the return of property, including national archives.
We recognize that third-party assistance is sometimes required to spur progress. For this reason, we encourage continued efforts by the International Committee of the Red Cross and Iraq to conduct joint analyses of four burial sites in Kuwait based on coordinates provided by the United States and the United Kingdom.
As the Governments of Iraq and Kuwait pursue resolution of all outstanding issues, we must also remain vigilant about Iran's malign influence and other external actors who seek to exploit divisions for their own self-interest.
President Trump’s recent trip to the region, which included his participation in U.S.-Gulf Cooperation Council Summit showed U.S. commitment depth shared prosperity.
The United States also remains committed to working with Government Iraq strengthen deepen long-term whole government partnership pursuit secure stable sovereign Iraq.
With that I thank you Madam President.