News agencies yesterday and today carried reports concerning missing Kuwaities and Iraq's failure to attend a meeting on the subject which was scheduled to be held in Geneva on 3 February 1999. To shed light on this matter, an authorized source in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Iraq has issued today the following statement:

 On several occasions in the past Iraq made representations to the effect that the coalition formula, under which the other parties participated in the Tripartite Commission on Missing Persons, had no basis in law or any connection with the actual facts underlying the subject of the missing persons concerned. The presence of parties such as the United States of America and Britain within the framework of this formula has not been a helpful factor in achieving the noble humanitarian tasks of the Commission but has in fact been a contributory element in politicizing its work.

 Now, in the wake of the aggression against Iraq committed by both the United States of America and Britain on 16 December 1998, the Iraqi Ministry of foreign Affairs has, in an official memorandum dated 30 January 1999, communicated to the International Committee of the Red Cross its decision not to participate in the Tripartite Commission's meetings devoted to discussing the issue of the missing persons. In that memorandum, circulated to all members of the Tripartite Commission, the Ministry explains that it will not participate in the meetings of the Commission so long as states having no missing persons (namely, the United States of America, Britain and France) remain among its members. The Ministry also states that it believes that the missing persons issue is a humanitarian one that must be resolved on the basis of humanitarian international law, and that the solution to this problem will serve the interests of Iraq because Iraq has more missing persons than the other parties. The large-scale devastating aggression launched by the United States of America and Britain against Iraq and the subsequent affirmation by U.S. officials and their British stooges of their intention to conspire against Iraq and interfere in its internal affairs has made it impossible to abide by the former formula for two reasons; first, because it is illegal and contrary to generally accepted rules; and, secondly, because it does not make it possible to achieve the desired humanitarian results.

 The Iraqi memorandum further pointed out that one of the main principles of action, that the States Member to the Tripartite Commission have agreed to respect, is for them to cooperate among themselves and encourage the emergence of an atmosphere of mutual confidence for the purpose of achieving their noble, humanitarian goals. How then, the Ministry asked, can these goals be achieved when certain Members of the Commission are trying to conspire against Iraq?

 The Ministry has emphasized in its memorandum, and is emphasizing again hereby that while it refuses to have any dealing with a formula named after the "coalition" it declares again that it will continue to seek to ascertain the fate of the missing Kuwaities and other nationalities in cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross and the States Member to the Tripartite Commission that do actually have missing persons. By the same token, it expects the States concerned to declare their own commitment to continue to seek to ascertain the fate of the missing Iraqis.