SECRETARY-GENERAL MEETS WITH PRESIDENT OF KAZAKSTAN, FAO DIRECTOR-GENERAL, PRESIDENT OF MERIEUX FOUNDATION, AND FOREIGN MINISTER OF CONGO
Press Release
SG/T/2068
SECRETARY-GENERAL MEETS WITH PRESIDENT OF KAZAKSTAN, FAO DIRECTOR-GENERAL, PRESIDENT OF MERIEUX FOUNDATION, AND FOREIGN MINISTER OF CONGO
19960624 GENEVA, 24 June (UN Information Service) -- At 9 a.m. today, Secretary- General Boutros Boutros-Ghali had a one-hour working breakfast with the President of Kazakstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev. At the President's invitation, the Secretary-General then joined him at a press conference. Afterwards, journalists tried to ask the Secretary-General further questions regarding his candidacy for a second term. He said he would have nothing to add to what he had said recently, as this was a matter to be decided by Member States.At 10:30 a.m., the Secretary-General met for one hour with Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). They discussed the preparation of the forthcoming Food Summit, to be held in Rome in November, as well as the food security component of the System-Wide Special Initiative on Africa.
At 12 noon, the Secretary-General met with Dr. Charles Mérieux, President of the Mérieux Foundation. Dr. Mérieux pledged the Foundation's support for the Special Initiative and for its health component. He drew particular attention to the role which French youth could play in connection with the Initiative. The Secretary-General welcomed the Foundation's involvement, noting that, to be successful, the Initiative should have the support of governments, as well as of non-governmental organizations. He added that a meeting of high-level representatives of donor countries would be held in Geneva on 2 July regarding implementation of the Initiative.
At 5 p.m., the Secretary-General met with the Foreign Minister of the Congo, Destin-Arsene Tsaty-Boungou, in his capacity as Chairman-in-Office of the Consultative Committee on Security in Central Africa. The Foreign Minister said that, parallel to the Organization of African Unity (OAU) Summit in Yaoundé, the Committee would hold a summit of its 11 heads of State to sign a non-aggression pact. The Secretary-General accepted an invitation to attend the signing ceremony for the pact, which he had supported. The two men also discussed the problem of micro-disarmament in Central Africa, the creation of a Central African model unit for peace-keeping operations, and the project on a subregional conference on democratic institutions.
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