US Mission Geneva

Today, the United Nations and the Government of Iraq signed an important agreement on the temporary relocation and eventual resettlement of the more than 3,000 residents of Camp Ashraf in Iraq. We commend the Government of Iraq for its work with United Nations Special Representative Ambassador Martin Kobler, and welcome this important step toward a humane resolution to the ongoing situation at Ashraf. The UN effort has our full support.

We gather this week to celebrate an important milestone in the history of this organization and to look ahead to the future.

Our pledges address five themes ranging from asylum and detention, to vulnerable populations, to refugee resettlement and statelessness.

Protecting and assisting refugees is among my government’s highest humanitarian priorities, and the pledges we are making today will be an important step in helping the 12 million people who wake up every morning stateless, belonging nowhere at all, and the more than 40 million who are displaced.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will address the a Ministerial Meeting of all UN member states in Geneva on December 7th.

MARK TONER: While we are encouraged by the international community’s response efforts and the impact they are having on saving lives, the crisis is far from over, and the needs are still great. Any decline in the level of international assistance, increase in conflict, and/or new disruptions to humanitarian access or trade could allow famine conditions to reappear in Somalia.

We know that as many as 12 million people around the world are not recognized as citizens by any state. They live in every region of the world, at the margins of the formal economy and political system, largely hidden without government recognition.

The United States’ commitment to the protection of refugees, asylum seekers, displaced populations, stateless persons, and other persons of concern to UNHCR remains strong. As we mark the 60th anniversary of UNHCR’s creation, the U.S. Government is proud of our long history of support to UNHCR as it has pursued its mandate to protect some of the world’s most vulnerable people.

The United States remains a committed partner with UNHCR and the beneficiaries it serves. We are providing more than $680 million dollars this year to the organization to assist its work across all four pillars defining its populations of concern – refugee assistance, refugee returns and reintegration, the internally displaced, and stateless persons.