ABSTRACT
As indicated in the preceding chapter, the efforts of Staffan de Mistura and Ad Melkert with UNAMI, and those of the article 140 Committee, and the article 23 Committee, have been less than entirely successful. While consultations regarding the logistics associated with the March 2010 national parliamentary elections in Iraq obviously received considerable attention from UNAMI at the beginning of the New Year, Ad Melkert’s team of UNAMI diplomats continued to press forward on confidence-building mechanisms broached in its April 2009 report on disputed territories. A February 2010 UNAMI report to the Security Council indicated that a high-level task force involving senior personnel from the Iraqi prime minister’s office, the office of the KRG’s president, and others were engaged in regular meetings on confidence-building measures, with especial focus on expediting property and restitution claims associated activities occurring before as well as after 2003. A central objective in that with regard was the evacuation of occupied government buildings—and especially schools—in Kirkuk, but only in the context of modalities that were locally oriented and provided an opportunity for dialogue and input by all affected and interested parties. At roughly the same time, joint security structures were set up in Kirkuk, North Mosul (Ninewa), and Diala in an effort to ease tensions between Baghdad and the KRG. 1 In early April 2010, there were indications that UNAMI Chief Melkert was also working on getting KRG and Iraqi central government officials together to resolve controversial governance issues that had plagued the province of North Mosul (Ninewa). 2
