UN Envoy Says No Immediate danger of Iraq Violence Spreading to Baghdad

United Nations (Antara/Xinhua-OANA) - The top UN envoy to Iraq on Thursday told members of the Security Council there is no immediate danger of the violence spreading to Baghdad, the Iraqi national capital. The prediction was retold by Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, this month's council president, at the UN Headquarters in New York after members of the council were briefed by the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General to Iraq, Nickolay Mlodenov, via a teleconference, with Mlodenov speaking from Baghdad, following insurgents taking over a wide swath of northern Iraq, including the nation's second largest city, Mosul. "Baghdad is well protected; the government is in control, so there is no immediate -- at least this is the way I understood him -- there is no immediate danger of the violence spreading to Baghdad," Churkin told reporters, quoting Mlodenov as saying. Mlodenov also heads the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI). He denied reports the recent activity was "spilling over from Syria -- that is not the situation." Syria has been locked in a three-year civil war. "I think the situation is that there is terrorist activity in the Middle East .. coming from different directions," the council president said. "Maybe some of those terrorists now fighting in Iraq have come from Syria but mostly they are moving from other directions and so it's kind of a mixed bag thing."(*)