DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
19960821
FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY
Ahmad Fawzi, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General, opened today's noon briefing by drawing attention to "few additions and subtractions" in yesterday's appointments of the Secretary-General. His scheduled meeting with Sultan Burhanudin, Leader of the Bohra Community in India, was cancelled. He met with the Permanent Representative of Namibia, Ambassador Tunguru Huaraka, who was paying a farewell call. He also met with the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation, Ambassador Sergey V. Lavrov. Ambassador Lavrov had thanked the Secretary-General for the United Nations Secretariat's help in the steps taken towards the freeing of the Russian airmen who were detained by the Afghan Taliban movement. The Deputy Spokesman said a statement on that meeting had been issued earlier today.
The Deputy Spokesman said the two had also discussed the situation in Cyprus with Ambassador Lavrov stating that the Secretary-General's views on the issue were shared by all Permanent Members of the Security Council. The Secretary-General and Ambassador Lavrov had both agreed on the necessity to encourage the parties to take effective steps in close coordination with the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Cyprus and the Commander of the United Nations Force in Cyprus to ensure that the regime of the buffer zone was well respected and well protected. The Secretary-General and Ambassador Lavrov favoured the restoration of proximity talks between the leaders of the two communities in Cyprus through the mediation of the new Special Representative, Professor Sung-Joo Han (Republic of Korea). Recalling that several correspondents had enquired about the whereabouts of Professor Sung Ho, the Deputy Spokesman said he had been in Seoul and was getting ready for a trip to the island next month.
On the question of the Russian hostages in Afghanistan, the Deputy Spokesman said Ambassador Lavrov, as he had already stated, had expressed his gratitude to the leadership of the United Nations Secretariat for the steps taken towards the freeing of the Russian airmen detained by the Afghan Taliban movement. The Russian pilots, as some correspondents who had been following the story might know, had broken free on 16 August -- "in a rather spectacular and adventurous move" -- after months in detention in Qandahar. The Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation had repeated his country's readiness to participate "in a most energetic manner" (the Ambassador's phrase) in efforts to conduct a dialogue with a broad spectrum of Afghanistan's political forces to promote national reconciliation in that country.
The Deputy Spokesman underlined, in response to an earlier question about Chechnya, that the United Nations was involved there on the humanitarian side. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was helping thousands
Daily Press Briefing - 2 - 21 August 1996
of refugees in neighbouring Dagestan and Ingushetia. He reminded correspondents that the United Nations had issued an appeal for $13 million to address the humanitarian needs of persons displaced as a result of the conflict. Some refugees had fled to North Ossetia as well. The appeal covered areas such as food aid, health, shelter, water and sanitation, among others. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Jose Ayala- Lasso, had also been following developments in Chechnya closely and had been in touch with representatives of the Russian Government since the outbreak of the conflict.
The Deputy Spokesman also said the World Food Programme (WFP) was doing "some admirable work" in the region. The WFP had today appealed to the United States to urgently airlift food for displaced Chechens. WFP officials anticipated that some 20,000 people might soon flee the beleaguered Russian republic and be in need of humanitarian assistance. WFP had requested the United States to airlift 160 metric tons of humanitarian daily rations -- equivalent to some 140,000 prepared meals -- to feed the expected outflow of people from the Chechen capital of Grozny. The meals would feed some 20,000 people for about a week. The United States undertook a similar operation last July when it airlifted 40 metric tons of food -- the equivalent of 35,000 prepared meals for displaced persons, the Deputy Spokesman said.
A WFP press release on the subject was available at the Spokesman's Office. He said that for the past 18 months, the WFP had been feeding up to 220,000 people who had fled the military confrontation in the Chechen republic. It had distributed food in Dagestan, Ingushetia and North Ossetia, the areas to which most of the Chechens had fled, as he had stated earlier. The Deputy Spokesman added that other United Nations agencies such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and non-governmental organizations like Medecins Sans Frontieres were also helping the displaced persons.
He said Security Council members had today met Burundi opposition parliamentarians, the same group which, courtesy of Parliamentarians for Global Action, would meet correspondents at the United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA) Club today at 1:30 p.m.
During the subsequent question and answer session, a correspondent said he understood that the United States was sending troops to Haiti today and would like to know the United Nations reaction. The Deputy Spokesman said that as he had explained to the same correspondent yesterday, the operation was a joint military exercise being undertaken by the two countries. It had nothing to do with the security situation on the island. He, however, urged the correspondent to contact the United States Permanent Mission for details of the exercises. "It is not a UN operation", he further said. The correspondent said the spokesman for the United Nations Mission in Haiti (UNMIH) had been making statements on the subject in Port-au-Prince. Juan
Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 21 August 1996
Carlos Brandt of the Spokesman's Office said the UNMIH Spokesman had told journalists of an announcement by the State Department that United States marines were to be sent to Haiti yesterday. The dispatch of the marines had been planned about a month ago as part of an exercise between the United States and Haiti, he said. The marines, numbering 50, had not left yesterday but were scheduled to do so today. Mr. Brandt again said the operation was a bilateral matter between the two countries.
Responding to a question about the Russian pilots, the Deputy Spokesman said the Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Afghanistan, Norbert Heinrich Holl, and another member of his team, had been participating in negotiations with the Taliban movement in the days leading up to the escape of the airmen. He was not suggesting, he stressed, that they had anything to do with the airmen's escape. The negotiations had been conducted in an attempt to secure their release and that was what the Russian Federation's Permanent Representative had referred to in thanking the leadership of the United Nations Secretariat.
Did the Secretary-General have any comment on the status of the nuclear test-ban negotiations in Geneva, in particular, the various options for moving the text to the General Assembly or the possibility of a non-United Nations conference to deal with the issue? a correspondent asked. In reply, the Deputy Spokesman said there was disappointment with the outcome of two years of negotiations in Geneva -- the fact that the Conference on Disarmament had been unable to put forward a treaty to the General Assembly. "We are aware of reports of certain Member States suggesting that perhaps they could bring the text before the General Assembly in the form of a draft resolution co- sponsored by a group of nations", he stated. Until that happened, he said the Secretary-General had no comment on what might or might not happen. He told the correspondent in response to further questions that endorsing the draft text outside a United Nations framework might mean a whole new process which might take many more years.
Asked whether the Secretary-General had read the article by United States Senator Jesse Helms in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, the Deputy Spokesman said: "Although the Secretary-General holds Mr. Helms in the highest regard, he disagrees with the premises upon which his article is based and also disagrees with the conclusions that he reaches in his article", the Deputy Spokesman said. He also said that the article was "riddled with inaccuracies". Speaking in his personal capacity, he added that whoever was briefing the Senator "needs to do a little more homework". Asked about the Director of the United Nations Centre in Washington, Joe Sills, the Deputy Spokesman said: "Joe is doing a very hard job under very difficult circumstances, and he had taken a very well-deserved break at the moment." Unfortunately, he could not therefore be called upon "to do something about the article". Again, speaking in his personal capacity, he said that we in the Secretariat would be very happy for the opportunity to correct some of the inaccuracies in Mr. Helm's article.
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