Good morning again, I introduced a resolution on Zimbabwe a little while ago. I want to make a few points. One: that a week ago the Security Council passed a PRST that stated that the conditions for free and fair elections were not present in Zimbabwe. Earlier the Secretary-General had asked for the postponement of the elections. President Mugabe and his people ignored both the Security Council decision and the calls by the international community and held a flawed election.

Therefore there is a crisis of legitimacy that continues - political legitimacy that continues. This crisis not only impacts the people of Zimbabwe and we stand with them but also the region and it impacts the credibility of the Security Council given what we stated a week ago. We want to respond to the situation and respond in a way that encourages a move towards resolving the legitimacy crisis without negatively impacting the people of Zimbabwe who are suffering a great deal at the hands of the regime.

So we have proposed a resolution that will impose targeted sanctions on those that are responsible for the political crisis. With the expectation and hope that they will be incentivized to cooperate to resolving the crisis of legitimacy, to creating a government there that represents - genuinely represents the legitimate representatives of the people of Zimbabwe. Also the resolution deals with the humanitarian situation - calls on all obstacles for the provision of assistance to be removed. So people can get the assistance they need because of the terrible economic circumstances: a million percent inflation, eighty-five percent unemployment, contraction of the economy by forty percent since 1999. In fact they have been - the government has imposed economic sanctions, humanitarian sanctions against its own people. We look forward to working with colleagues in the Council. We have called for an experts meeting this afternoon and we look forward to the briefing on Tuesday. I think we expect a vote on the resolution sometimes next week.

Statement issued by the US UN Mission New York July 3 2008