In progress at UNHQ

DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

15 August 1996



Press Briefing

DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

19960815 FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY

"This may go down in the Guinness Book of World Records as the shortest briefing ever from this podium," Sylvana Foa, Spokesman for Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, said as she began today's noon briefing.

Regarding the dispute over the Hanish Islands in the Red Sea, the Secretary-General had been following the situation between Eritrea and the Republic of Yemen closely. During the past three days Under-Secretary-General Ismat Kittani had held a series of meetings with representatives of the two countries, as well as with a representative of France. The Secretary-General supported the diplomatic efforts that France was currently undertaking with both Eritrea and the Republic of Yemen. Yesterday, the Secretary-General addressed letters to the Presidents of both countries in which he appealed for maximum restraint on both sides and for their full cooperation in order to calm the situation and facilitate the implementation in both letter and spirit of the 21 May 1996 agreement.

The Council was now in a marathon session on demining in the context of peace-keeping, Ms. Foa said. In the morning it had taken up the Croatia issue. There was a Presidential statement. The Council reminded the Government of Croatia of its responsibility to cooperate with the United Nations Transitional Administration for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium (UNTAES) and to create conditions conducive to maintaining stability in the region. The Council called on the Government of Croatia to take the necessary action without delay. The Council asked the Government of Croatia to adopt a comprehensive amnesty law for all persons who served in the civil administration, the military and the police forces of the local Serb authorities in the United Nations Protected Areas--excepting those who committed war crimes as defined by international law.

The Presidential statement said that while the Council appreciated the existing agreement between UNTAES and the Croatian Government regarding the funding of public services in Eastern Slavonia, it felt that the amounts agreed to were not sufficient to cover all the costs of such services, the Spokesman continued. The Council expected further funding to be made available by the Government of Croatia, urgently and without conditions. The statement also brought up the issue of the mandate of UNTAES. It affirmed the Council's readiness to consider, at an appropriate time, extending the duration of the mandate on the basis of the Basic Agreement and a recommendation from the Secretary-General. The Council stressed the importance of UNTAES being able to complete its mandated tasks.

Although today there had not been any full payments of United Nations assessments, there was "a chunk of change worthy of mentioning," Ms. Foa said.

The Organization had received from the United States a partial payment for a prior year of $47 million. It was a very welcome check. "Thank you very much, U.S.A." The check brought the United States' debt to the United Nations to below $1.7 billion--to $1.654 billion.

The Spokesman said that Gustave Feissel, the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Cyprus, had met separately with both Glafcos Clerides, and Rauf Denktash to talk about the recent tragic events on that island and to underline the need to prevent recurrences of those events. Mr. Feissel had reported that they were very candid meetings and that both leaders were quite affected by what had happened. The deaths of the two demonstrators were a terrible tragedy.

During the meetings, Mr. Feissel had stressed that it was the responsibility of the authorities on either side of the buffer zone to prevent people from breaching the cease-fire line and getting into the zone, the Spokesman continued. That is, it was the authorities' responsibility to keep people out. However, if people got into the buffer zone, it became the sole responsibility of the United Nations to deal with the incident and control it. There should be no interference from the two sides. "That is, demonstrators breach the line and get in there, then it's up to us to deal with them. Everybody else should stay out of it and let the United Nations deal with it."

A correspondent asked if Mr. Feissel had said when the report on the incidents in Cyprus would be delivered. The Spokesman said that yesterday her office had put out the report on Sunday's incident. It expected to have the report on yesterday's incident either today or tomorrow.

For information media. Not an official record.