DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
19960903
FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY
Sylvana Foa, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, told correspondents at today's noon briefing that Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali was "concerned over the impact of the latest events in Iraq, which clearly will adversely affect the implementation of United Nations programmes for humanitarian assistance.
"The Secretary-General hopes that tensions will quickly subside so that we can get on with our work of alleviating the suffering which affects all segments of the Iraqi population", she said.
Ms. Foa said that the Steering Committee for the implementation of Security Council resolution 986 (1995) had met at Headquarters this morning. "We are going ahead with preparations, but it's now obvious to all of us that the implementation of resolution 986 will have to be postponed until things calm down", she said.
The Security Coordinator of the United Nations reported that all United Nations staff in Iraq were accounted for, and safe, she added. All United Nations offices there were open and security measures remained unchanged.
The Spokesman's office had been in touch with Arbil this morning. "They say the town remains quiet, the shops are open and people seem to be going about their business as usual. The United Nations personnel in Arbil say that it appears to them that all tanks and troops have withdrawn from the city. We don't know what's going on in the rest of the zone."
The United Nations has 35 United Nations guards inside Arbil itself and a smattering of United Nations staff, from the World Food Programme (WFP), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), some five or six internationals, in Arbil. "And of course there's a whole slew of non-governmental organizations."
In Sulaimaniya, "people are nervous", because of the rumours circulating, she said. Yesterday there was a demonstration in front of the United Nations office there, "and a couple of windows were broken. People were asking for protection. But so far they have not heard any fighting, no shelling, nothing".
The WFP informed Headquarters that they had had to suspend some of their operations in northern Iraq because of fighting between Kurdish factions. Not many details were available but the WFP was not overly concerned about the situation. "They said that they had just completed the August distribution in the north, so people there do have enough food; but because of factional
fighting some of the main roads in the area have been closed." The WFP also said that it had ample food in its warehouses in the north, between 10,000 and 14,000 tonnes. The WFP brings in the food for the whole country from Turkey, which meant that if the roads remained closed due to the fighting, it could eventually affect the WFP's ability to distribute food to the rest of the country, including central and southern Iraq. The WFP in Iraq had a caseload of about 2 million people and 13 international staff, nine in the north and 4 in south/central Iraq, Ms. Foa noted.
The Security Council was due for consultations of the whole this afternoon at 4 p.m. The Council would first be briefed by Ambassador Rolf Ekeus, Chairman of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) established by the Secretary-General under Security Council resolution 687 (1991); it would then review the sanctions. Ms. Foa said she had asked Mr. Ekeus to speak to correspondents tomorrow at the noon briefing, "to give us at least as much as he gave the Security Council, and preferably more, and he has promised to try and do that".
The United Nations goodwill mission on the Bakassi peninsula, the focus of a dispute between Nigeria and Cameroon, after having received the approval of General Sani Abacha of Nigeria, would depart at the end of the this week, Ms. Foa told correspondents. Mission members will include staff from the Department of Peace-keeping Operations and the Office of Legal Affairs as well as from the Department of Political Affairs.
The Secretary-General spent most of the morning consulting with his senior advisors on Iraq and talking to United Nations personnel in the field, the Spokesman said. This afternoon he was scheduled to receive the Permanent Representative of Colombia, Julio Londono-Paredes; and the Permanent Representative of Benin, Rene Valery Mongbe, would pay him a farewell call. At 5:30 pm he was due to receive the leader of the Democratic Party of Sudan, Mohamed Osman Al-Mirghany. "But as you can imagine, he will be dedicating quite a bit of his time to the situation on Iraq", Ms. Foa said.
The document on the comprehensive test-ban treaty was out, she told correspondents, as document 1027.
Was the Secretary-General's suspension of the implementation of the food-for-oil deal meant to be punitive or retaliative in nature? a correspondent asked. "The Secretary-General decided early Sunday morning that security conditions had deteriorated to the point where he could not justify sending 14 oil inspectors and 32 goods inspectors into a highly volatile situation. That decision was based purely on security concerns, logistic concerns, not to mention a few financial concerns, but mainly a concern for their security, and was not in any way designed to be a punitive measure", Ms. Foa said.
Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 3 September 1996
Before the Secretary-General announced the delay on Sunday, was he about to announce the implementation of the programme? a correspondent asked. "We still have some technical details that have to be worked out, it's one of the reasons the Steering Committee on the implementation is meeting today. We still have some open questions on the pricing formula, for instance, and on the escrow account -- I guess you don't open $2 billion accounts by just signing on the dotted line. It is quite complicated", Ms. Foa said. "Before the Secretary-General reports to the Security Council, he wants the 14 oil inspectors, the four overseers and the 32 goods inspectors on deck, in place, ready to do their work, so that there wouldn't be any delay. Because once he reports to the Security Council, the clock starts ticking for resolution 986 (1995), which runs for 6 months. So we don't want the clock to start before we have all our ducks in a row. There is still plenty to be done around here."
Was the implementation suspended, or just postponed? a correspondent asked. "Right now, the Secretary-General has delayed deployment of the oil and the goods inspectors, but it's clear that because of the deterioration of the security situation, there will be some postponement. We're hoping that it won't be a long postponement. We're hoping to be able to get back to work."
Had the Spokesman heard that the United States wanted to go back to the Memo of Understanding and renegotiate it? a correspondent asked. "I heard something about that and I tried to get some clarification. Obviously conditions in Iraq are fluid and right now our concern is totally focused on the deterioration of security and the impact that will have on the humanitarian aid programmes. As you know, we have substantial programmes inside Iraq and we're hoping to be able to beef them up. When the dust settles on all of this, then we'll be able to look at the technicalities and see if there are any changes that need to be made."
Was the Secretariat still legally in control of the 986 resolution mechanism? What if the members, or a member, of the Security Council decided to go back and reopen the issue? "I would imagine that since the Memo of Understanding has been accepted by the Security Council, there would be legal technicalities that would have to be looked at. But hopefully once everything quiets down, we'll get to a situation where we can start moving again", Ms. Foa said.
Was the Secretary-General himself informed of the missile strike before it occurred? "No. The Secretary-General was briefed yesterday by the Deputy Permanent Representative of the United States Mission. Ambassador Edward Gnehm went to the residence and spent about an hour there. He briefed the Secretary-General on the situation in northern Iraq and the Secretary-General briefed him on reports from our people in Arbil and Sulaimaniya, and they discussed a wide range of issues in that regard, but there was nothing on that [the missile strike]."
Daily Press Briefing - 4 - 3 September 1996
Referring to the dispute between Nigeria and Cameroon concerning the Bakassi peninsula, a correspondent asked how long would the United Nations goodwill mission be in the area. Associate Spokesman Juan Carlos Brandt said that the mission would return on 18 September. Ms. Foa added that they were due to leave around 6 September.
When the Secretary-General decided to suspend the implementation of resolution 986, was implementation just a few days away from sending the inspectors? "It's hard to tell exactly when they were going to leave. We had a three-person advance team from the company we contracted to provide the oil inspectors. That three-person team had arrived in Baghdad over the weekend and was taking a look at the facilities -- were there enough offices, were the phones and fax machines working properly, that sort of thing. They were supposed to tell us what we needed before we could actually deploy the oil inspectors. But the oil inspectors were certainly not going today."
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