UN-Truth

The Associated Press reported over the weekend that “The United Nations said an interpreter responsible for an erroneous report that Syria has a nuclear facility has been reprimanded and the organization has apologized to Syria’s UN Mission. Earlier this week, Syria denied that one of its representatives told the UN General Assembly’s committee that deals with disarmament on Tuesday that Israel had attacked a Syrian nuclear facility. It said the representative was misquoted, demanded a correction, and insisted that such facilities do not exist in Syria. The unidentified Syrian representative spoke in Arabic and the interpreter who worked from Arabic into French was fairly accurate, but the problem occurred when an interpreter translated the statement into English from French“, according to UN associate spokesman Farhan Haq.

AP added that “After more than seven hours of investigation Wednesday, UN officials agreed the Syrian delegate was misquoted. ‘There was no use of the word nuclear’, Haq said, according to the AP … ‘Action will be taken against that freelance interpreter to the fullest extent of the UN rules and regulations … The interpreter who was responsible for the unfortunate mistake has been given a note of reprimand. While it was indeed unfortunate, mistakes can occur, as in any other area of work’, Haq added Friday. ‘The Interpretation Service maintains high standards, and mistakes of this nature occur very rarely’, he said”.

The AP reported that “Haq also said an apology has been given to the Syrian Mission regarding the Tuesday interpretation error and accepted by them as an unintended mistake. The mistake made headlines in the Middle East and heightened concerns over Damascus’ nuclear ambitions.”
The AP report on the UN apology and note of reprimand to interpreter working from French to English is here.

There was no further mention of the UN press release which picked up from the erroneus translation. It is true that it would be too much to ask press release writers — who work for the UN’s Department of Public Information — to go back to check with the intepreters if something significant or shocking is said.

Filed under: Israel, Syria, UN Administration, United Nations