TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE BY SECRETARY-GENERAL KOFI ANNAN AT UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS, ON 14 NOVEMBER

Press Release
SG/SM/6393

TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE BY SECRETARY-GENERAL KOFI ANNAN AT UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS, ON 14 NOVEMBER

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's good to see you again. But first, I have two announcements to make.

The first one is really on the financial situation of the Organization. As you know, the United States Congress did not act on proposed legislation that would have taken a significant step towards funding the more than $1 billion in overdue United States payments to the Organization. It is both unreasonable and regrettable that the legislation was held hostage to the entirely unrelated domestic policies of abortion.

I am disappointed and concerned.

The failure comes during a week when the United Nations Security Council has been seized of the crisis regarding arms inspections in Iraq, in which the United Nations plays a role that is indispensable to international peace and security, as well as to the vital national security interests of the United States. And it comes also on the day after the General Assembly endorsed a major component of my proposals for institutional reforms.

I am grateful to all those in the Clinton Administration and the Congress, as well as the public at large, who worked tirelessly to see this happen. And I know that they, like us, are dismayed at the outcome.

But the United Nations must move on. We will, of course, continue our efforts to reform the Organization and revitalize it. I have said since I was elected Secretary-General on 17 December 1996 that we must reform for our own sake. We must revitalize this Organization to make it effective and relevant, and not to please any particular constituency. At the same time, we must also take serious stock of our financial vulnerabilities.

First of all, we have been borrowing from peacekeeping funds to pay our regular budget bills. This practice is imprudent, at best. Because United States arrears payments have not been legislated in the expected amount, I cannot assure the prospect of repayment to those Member States that have supplied troops and matériel to United Nations peacekeeping missions, many of which are developing countries. Therefore, I would like guidance from the General Assembly on whether and how to continue this practice.

Secondly, I am asking the President of the General Assembly to reconvene, as a matter of urgency, the Assembly's high-level group on finance to explore all possible options for ensuring prompt payment by Member States of their dues, and to report their recommendations before the end of the current session of the General Assembly.

The next item on my agenda is a more pleasant one. I want to announce the appointment of Sergio Vieira de Mello as the new Emergency Relief Coordinator in the Department of Humanitarian Affairs.

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Mr. Vieira de Mello comes to us with years of experience in the humanitarian field, having worked many years in the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). He has worked in many parts of the world, from Bosnia to Cambodia to the Great Lakes, where, recently, he acted as a major envoy for Mrs. Ogata on the difficult issue in that region. So he will join us in December. And, ladies and gentlemen, I present Mr. Sergio Vieira de Mello.

Mr. VIEIRA DE MELLO: Mr. Secretary-General, I am extremely grateful and honoured by your decision. As a career staff member, I am proud to be invited to be part of your team. As you said, I hope to contribute my modest field experience in humanitarian and peacekeeping operations to the strengthening of the Office of the Emergency Relief Coordinator, in a spirit of entire, total loyalty, solidarity and transparency towards those to whom we are accountable, including yourselves.

It is essential that the new office be an effective support mechanism to those operational agencies that actually do the work on the ground. And we will try and do that on the basis of the three pillars that you announced in your 16 July reform plan: advocacy; policy development; and cooperation. I know the last word often sounds like a bad word, but we will make it work. We will make it work, I repeat, in a service- and support-oriented manner, with your full backing, which I know I will enjoy.

And since solutions to humanitarian problems and to the threat -— the challenge -— that humanitarian principles and action presently face cannot be humanitarian and can only be found through political and, at times, unfortunately, military, but also human rights and development means, I also pledge to work in very close coordination with other actors in the United Nations system and outside, towards comprehensive solutions to the major humanitarian crises that the Organization presently faces.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary-General, first, thank you very much for sharing time with us. Do you have any plans or any thoughts about the possibility of pulling out of Iraq those involved in the oil-for-food-and-medicine programme, specifically given that the current atmosphere has moved away from diplomacy? And what would trigger that? And secondly, what do you think of the Iraqis going to the palaces and factories as human shields? What is your opinion of this sort of thing?

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL: First of all, let me say that at this stage we have no plans to stop the oil-for-food scheme. The operations will continue. It was and it is intended to help the Iraqi population -— women, children and vulnerable populations. And we have no reason to stop that. That will continue.

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I would also hope -— you all saw Tariq Aziz on television last night still arguing that it will be possible to solve this through diplomatic means. I hope this implies that no one is closed-minded and that it is still possible for some gestures or initiatives to be taken to resolve this in a manner that will avoid the use of force. I have now seen on television the Iraqi populations that have moved into the palaces of President Saddam Hussein, and of course this also reminds me of what happened in the 1990s when the term "human shield" was first coined, if I may say so.

I would hope that -— no, I shouldn't say that. No, no. We were shocked by that. I don't think that women and children should be used in that situation. I mean, in fact the sense here is that they volunteered, but even if they had volunteered and, indeed, the Government felt that there was going to be an attack, you don't put women and children in those situations. And they should have been prevented from placing themselves in harm's way, if the Government generally believes there is going to be an attack.

QUESTION: Are you not putting the employees of the United Nations in harm's way by not even considering pulling them out, since there are indications of a military operation?

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL: I am not sure that we have got to that stage yet. We would definitely not put our staff in harm's way. And the moment we feel their lives are in danger, we will pull them out. We have not made that judgement yet.

QUESTION: Though you have handed the diplomatic initiative over to the Council, what have you been personally doing to try and defuse the situation? Have you been in contact with the leaders of the major Powers, talking with Albright or other leaders? Have you been in contact with the Iraqi leadership? Can you describe some of those contacts and communications you've been having and what you are trying to accomplish?

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL: I've been doing nothing but that for the past 10 days or more, in fact, talking to other actors in this capital, in other capitals, including the Middle East. I've spoken to several of them: President Mubarak, King Hussein. I've spoken to others in the region, and of course I've been in touch with Mrs. Albright and others, and yesterday morning I also spoke to Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, before his departure this morning. So I think the efforts should continue. Yes, I have handed over the problem to the Security Council, but it doesn't mean that I sit and fold my hands, and I will do whatever I can to help resolve the crisis.

QUESTION: When Mr. Connor was in Washington last week, he seemed to hold out the prospect that the United Nations could collapse financially in pretty short order. There wouldn't be a lot of lead time. What kind of contingency plans are you making if this should in fact turn out to be true?

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THE SECRETARY-GENERAL: I think in the statement I made just a few minutes ago, we are reconvening the high-level group of the General Assembly to really look into this and come up with very urgent recommendations before the end of the year. And I think Mr. Connor was right in raising the issue that in the past we have relied on peacekeeping funds. Peacekeeping operations have been reduced considerably, so that facility is not going to be there for us to keep tapping into. We've also raised the question of whether the practice itself is prudent. If we do not have the facility to borrow from peacekeeping money, and peacekeeping money is diminishing, and we can't borrow from the banks, and the Member States are not meeting their obligations in full and on time, the Organization will face a serious solvency problem.

QUESTION: On what order of collapse?

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL: Well, that is your phrase. I wouldn't put it that way. I don't put together a committee to discuss or advise me on collapse. How to avoid collapse would be their responsibility.

QUESTION: Congress's action or inaction came in a week when the Security Council is dealing with an issue that the United States cares about a great deal. Can you assess more broadly the political implications of this for the United States? Specifically, there is the issue of the United States request for a reduction in the dues assessment. How do you think other Member States are going to look on that?

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL: I don't think this decision is going to facilitate negotiations or transactions here. The President himself earlier this year saw the problem in very clear terms, and made the statement that if the United States expects to continue to lead in the United Nations and to play a constructive part, it has to pay its way. I think that statement was valid then and is perhaps more valid today.

QUESTION: Back on Iraq, it seems that in the years since resolution 687 (1991) was passed, through a combination of parts of it being ignored, other parts being violated, other parts being undermined, it hasn't worked. Do you think it's time to reopen the diplomacy much more widely, and say that it's time to redraft an approach to dealing with the possible creation of weapons of mass destruction from a whole different angle than we have used so far, which hasn't worked in six years?

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL: Let me say that a great deal has been accomplished during the past six years. In fact, when you read the UNSCOM reports, quite a lot of weapons have been destroyed. I think it was someone in Washington who assessed that more weapons have been destroyed by UNSCOM than by the Desert Storm coalition. If that statement is a fact, then UNSCOM has achieved a lot. The import of your question is, shouldn't we be reassessing the approach? Are we on the right track? This is something I'm

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sure the Council members are thinking about and looking at. It is really a matter for the Council and UNSCOM. Hopefully, as we go through this whole process and the discussions which have taken place this week, when the Commission meets it will reassess what has been achieved and what needs to be done.

QUESTION: Do you support sending another diplomatic mission to Baghdad, perhaps Mr. Primakov, going to try again to convince the Iraqis?

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL: I would support it, if it would help. I don't think we should leave any stone unturned, and if Mr. Primakov's involvement or any other involvement would help I would encourage it, yes.

QUESTION: Are you working towards that in any way?

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL: I'm constantly working towards peaceful solutions. And this is one of those situations.

QUESTION: To go back to some earlier questions, do you personally favour lifting sanctions against Iraq, or modifying the approach in some way, to something that might or might not be more effective?

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL: I think the Security Council has passed many resolutions on sanctions, on disarmament, and I think we have a clear agenda and a clear programme of action. What is important is that everyone cooperate and we get the job done and have the sanctions lifted. Considerable progress has been made, as was indicated in the last report of the Chairman of UNSCOM, and with cooperation from Iraq we can perhaps someday see a light at the end of the tunnel. But it can only happen with the cooperation of Iraq.

QUESTION: A short while ago, the Iraqi Foreign Minister was highly critical of the recent United Nations decisions regarding Iraq, to pull out the inspectors, and also the statement that was made last night. He went so far as to call the British stooges of the United States and Mr. Butler a puppet of the United Nations. You were hopeful that the Iraqis might be conciliatory, but that sounds rather inflammatory. Do you have any response to those comments?

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL: I don't have to respond. But the only thing I will say is that it's not unusual for governments and people to take a very belligerent position and make very belligerent statements when they are ready to change their position. So it wouldn't surprise me if, even after those statements, there is a shift in their policy.

QUESTION: Two questions. The first, do you feel betrayed by the United States Congress after one year of showing them the way to manage this house? And also, press reports have linked one of the top guys you chose to draw up

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the reform here, Maurice Strong, with illegal financial activities. Can you address that as well?

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL: First of all, I don't feel betrayed. Betrayal is a strong word. If there is betrayal, it's a betrayal of the international community and the United Nations system, not of me personally.

On the question of the other issue you raise about Mr. Strong, I have nothing to say about that. Mr. Strong has told me that there is nothing to it, and the evidence in the case is before the court, as far as I gather, so I would not want to comment on that. And I don't think it would be appropriate in any event, and I'm surprised you asked that.

QUESTION: You said that people make belligerent comments when they might be about to change their position. Do you have any indications from any sources that Iraq is about to reverse its decision?

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL: No, I cannot say I have any indications from any sources that Iraq is about to reverse its position, but I would also not exclude it.

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