DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
19970421
FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY
Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, began today's noon briefing with an update by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) calling upon the Kisangani authorities in eastern Zaire to take urgent action to airlift Rwandan refugees home, saying that each day's delay would lead to more deaths.
Also concerning the situation was a statement by the Secretary-General, who was in Geneva today, the Spokesman reported. The statement said, in part, "I very much deplore the recent attacks on refugee camps and humanitarian workers and I urge all the parties to stop the fighting and allow the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian assistance to the civilian population caught in the conflict".
Mr. Eckhard said that in another news release, issued Saturday, the World Food Programme (WFP) announced that on Saturday it had begun distributing emergency food aid to the most vulnerable people in Albania.
The Secretary-General had also issued a statement from Geneva today concerning chemical weapons, Mr. Eckhard said. In that statement, the Secretary- General called on Member States to ratify the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction. The Convention, which would enter into force on 29 April, was still lacking the support of some crucial Member States. On Friday, Jamaica had become the 163rd member to sign the Convention. To date, 74 States had ratified the Convention.
Mr. Eckhard read the following statement, just released, attributable to the Secretary-General, concerning the elections in Eastern Slavonia: "On 18 April, the United Nations Transitional Administrator for Eastern Slavonia, Jacques Paul Klein, has reported to me on the elections in the region on 13-14 April 1997." The meeting between Mr. Klein and the Secretary-General took place in Bonn, Germany, last Friday, Mr. Eckhard explained.
Continuing to read from the Secretary-General's statement, the Spokesman said: "These were part of the first nationwide elections in Croatia since the conflict in the former Yugoslavia started six years ago. I was glad to hear the positive assessment of Mr. Klein on the provisional results of the elections. From my own time in the region, I understand the suffering and anguish this conflict has caused. The United Nations Transitional Administration for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium (UNTAES) is proving that the wounds of war can be healed and a better future is possible. The next most significant challenge in the implementation of UNTAES' mandate will be the establishment of
the conditions necessary for the return home of all displaced persons and refugees. It is up to the Security Council, to which I will present my recommendations shortly, to decide on the modalities of the future United Nations presence in the region. I express my support to the Transitional Administrator and my deep appreciation of the dedicated work of the staff of UNTAES."
The Spokesman said the ninth weekly report provided to Iraq on the implementation of Security Council resolution 986 (1995), the "oil-for-food" plan, was available. As of Friday, 50 oil contracts had been submitted and approved. The United Nations Secretariat had received 482 applications for the sale of humanitarian supplies. Of those applications, 153 were submitted to the Security Council Committee monitoring the sanctions against Iraq, which then approved 113 applications and put on hold 30 others. Ten applications were pending the "no objections" deadlines. Total oil proceeds had now reached $1.09 billion. Of that amount, $720 million was allotted to humanitarian supplies, $327 million to the United Nations Compensation Fund, and the rest to other programme elements.
The report of the High Representative on the implementation of the Peace Agreement on Bosnia and Herzegovina, Carl Bildt (document S/1997/310), was also available, Mr. Eckhard said.
The Government of Italy had informed the Department of Peace-keeping Operations that it would contribute 23 police officers from its "Carbinieri" police force to participate in the International Police Task Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina (IPTF), Mr. Eckhard said. The officers were expected to be ready for deployment within 30 days. The Department had gladly accepted the offer, he added.
Mr. Eckhard said that the Holy See had paid in full its United Nations assessment of $10,652 for the current year. The total number of Member States paid in full for 1997 was 52.
The address of the Secretary-General in Geneva today to the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) upon the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary was available in English and French, Mr. Eckhard said, adding that it had been delivered partly in English and partly in French.
Regarding today's press conferences at Headquarters, the Spokesman said that progress on the negotiations under way for the special session of the General Assembly on review of implementation of Agenda 21, the programme of action adopted by the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) would be the subject of a 2:30 p.m. briefing in room 226. The Chairman of the current session of the Commission on Sustainable Development, Mostafa Tolba (Egypt), would talk to correspondents. Joining him would be Celso Luiz Nunes Amorim (Brazil) and Derek Osborn (United Kingdom), who were chairing the informal negotiations. Prior to that press conference, at 2 p.m. in room 226, the non-governmental organizations attending the Commission's session would
Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 21 April 1997
present their views on the negotiations. The press conference would be chaired by Joke Waller-Hunter of the Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development.
Mr. Eckhard said that the Under-Secretary-General for Administration and Management Joseph Connor would brief permanent representatives on the status of managerial reform in the Organization at the end of the first quarter of this year on Tuesday, 22 April, at 10 a.m. in Conference Room 3. He would then address correspondents at the noon briefing.
Opening the question-and-answer session, a correspondent asked about the status of the General Assembly debate on the situation in the Middle East. Mr. Eckhard said that the Assembly was still shy of the more than 50 per cent of positive written responses required by Member States to support such a meeting. He added, "we're getting very close. So, maybe in the next few days, we'll cross that line". To a follow-up question about when such a session would take place, once a majority of positive responses had been received, he said that it would be convened within 24 hours. The Secretary-General would inform the President of the Assembly that the requisite number of letters had been received.
Asked whether there had been some sort of ruling by the Legal Department on the revised plan concerning parking regulations by the United States State Department, Mr. Eckhard said that as announced by his office last week, a preliminary reading of the State Department's revised plan indicated that there appeared to be no contradiction with international law. Now, as he understood it, it was between the City of New York and the State Department to sort things out between themselves.
Another correspondent asked if the Secretary-General's address tomorrow night at the Council on Foreign Relations and the ensuing question-and-answer period would be on the record. Mr. Eckhard said that he would double-check, but that his understanding was that standard procedure applied, meaning that the speech and the question-and-answer session would be off-the-record.
Since the election in Eastern Slavonia "was not so romantic, as you described", a correspondent asked whether a possible extension of the UNTAES mandate was discussed in Bonn between the Secretary-General and Mr. Klein. Mr. Eckhard said that they discussed next steps, and that according to the Secretary- General's statement, he would be making recommendations to the Security Council on that matter. Despite the administrative problems of the first day of voting, which were "horrendous" -- and UNTAES had said as much -- the problems were sorted out by the extension into the second day, with participation by some 90 per cent of the voters. "The bottom line is that the elections were successfully carried out", he added.
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