DURING GENEVA STAY SECRETARY-GENERAL TO DEAL PRIMARILY WITH SITUATION IN FORMER YUGOSLAVIA AND ROLE OF UNITED NATIONS
Press Release
SG/T/2011
DURING GENEVA STAY SECRETARY-GENERAL TO DEAL PRIMARILY WITH SITUATION IN FORMER YUGOSLAVIA AND ROLE OF UNITED NATIONS
19951206 (Received from the Spokeswoman for Secretary-General in Europe.)At a briefing on the programme of the Secretary-General today, the Spokeswoman for the Secretary-General in Europe, Therese Gastaut, told correspondents that the Secretary-General had arrived in Geneva late Tuesday night following a 10-day, five-nation tour of west Africa. During the course of his mission, the Secretary-General had held extensive meetings with the authorities in Ghana; worked to inject new impetus into the peace processes in Sierra Leone and Liberia; delivered a major address to the Sixth Conference of Heads of State and Government using French as a Common Language (Francophone Summit) in Cotonu, Benin and met with Benin authorities; and delivered several addresses, including the presentation address for the Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize to King Juan Carlos of Spain and former President of the United States Jimmy Carter in Yamoussoukro, administrative capital of Cote d'Ivoire, where he also delivered addresses rendering homage to President Houphouet-Boigny and the late Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin.
During his stay in Geneva today and tomorrow, the Secretary-General was to deal primarily with the situation regarding the former Yugoslavia. Today, he was expected to conduct internal meetings with his principal collaborators on the situation in the former Yugoslavia in preparation for the meeting to be held in Geneva tomorrow.
The purpose of the meeting on Thursday, 7 December, in the Palais des Nations was to prepare for the London Peace Implementation Conference to be held on 8-9 December. The Secretary-General was to examine the role of the United Nations in the former Yugoslavia in the light of the evolution of the peace process in the region, including the questions of rehabilitation and reconstruction. The meeting was to be held at 10 a.m. on Thursday in the Palais des Nations, and was to be presided over by the Secretary-General with the participation of Thorvald Stoltenberg, Co-Chairman of the Steering Committee of the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia; Kofi Annan, Under-Secretary-General, Special Representative of the Secretary- General for the Former Yugoslavia and Special Representative to the
- 2 - Press Release SG/T/2011 6 December 1995
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) who had just spent two days in Brussels to carry out contacts with NATO; Sadako Ogata, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; Jose Ayala Lasso, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; Marrack Goulding, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs; and General Rupert Smith, Force Commander, the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR), in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Spokeswoman recalled that there were three primary aspects regarding the role of the United Nations in the light of the currently evolving peace process in the former Yugoslavia. First was the implementation of the Bosnian Peace Agreement achieved in Dayton, Ohio and the aspects of this Agreement as they affected the United Nations and in particular the assurance of the orderly transfer of authority foreseen in the Peace Agreement. In addition to the transition from UNPROFOR to the Implementation Force (IFOR), the preparatory meeting in Geneva on Thursday would also consider humanitarian and human rights questions, the role of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), questions relative to an international civilian police force and finally the reconstruction of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The second aspect to be raised at the Geneva meeting Thursday was the situation in Croatia, specifically the implementation of the Basic Agreement concerning Eastern Slavonia reached on 12 November. The third element would be the future of the United Nations Preventive Deployment Force (UNPREDEP) in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
On Friday, 8 December the Secretary-General would go to London to participate in the Peace Implementation Conference, to open at 4 p.m. and to be chaired by the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, Malcom Rifkind. The Secretary-General would deliver an opening address.
* *** *