DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

Press Briefing

DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

(Incorporates briefing by spokesman for General Assembly President)

Juan Carlos Brandt, Associate Spokesman for the Secretary-General, opened today's briefing by noting that the Security Council had just received a briefing by the Executive Chairman of the Special Commission (UNSCOM) on Iraq, Richard Butler, on his recent visit to that country. Mr. Brandt said it was his understanding that the text of a presidential statement was being prepared for adoption sometime before the end of today, or tomorrow. At 3 p.m. today, the Council would hold an open debate on the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina and, time permitting, consider a draft resolution on it. Owing to the length of the list of speakers on the subject -- 24 as of 10 a.m. today -- Mr. Brandt said there was a chance the debate could spill over into tomorrow.

He noted that in answer to a correspondent's question on his way into Headquarters this morning, the Secretary-General had said that he expected to meet with Ambassador Butler in the late morning or early afternoon. Whenever that meeting happened, the Spokesman's Office would "squawk" it, Mr. Brandt said.

Recapping the events of yesterday at the Security Council, he said the Council had considered the two reports of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP), and on his good offices there. The Council was now working on a draft resolution on Cyprus which might be adopted tomorrow. Also yesterday, Mr. Brandt continued, the Council received a briefing on Tajikistan. Following consultations on that issue, the Council President had stated that members had expressed their concern at the worsening security situation in the country, and at the delays that seemed to exist in the implementation of the peace process.

Mr. Brandt informed correspondents of a press release from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia concerning the two Bosnia-Croat indictees arrested by the Stabilization Force (SFOR) operatives yesterday. The two accused had already been transferred to the Court's detention unit in The Hague, and the next step in the process was their initial appearance before the Trial Chamber during which they would enter a plea on each count they were being charged with.

The initial appearance of Anto Furundzija was scheduled for tomorrow, 19 December, at 2:30 p.m. local time; no date had been set for the initial appearance of Vlatko Kupreskic, who had been injured in the process of arrest. In a comment contained in the press release, Mr. Brandt continued, the Chief Prosecutor of the Tribunal, Louise Arbor, invited all remaining indicted

accused persons to surrender. The press release contained a good deal of information, observed the Associate Spokesman, commending it to correspondents. Also available in the Spokesman's Office, in connection with the same issue, was a statement by the Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Javier Solana on SFOR's action regarding the arrest of the two men.

The Associate Spokesman announced closed consultations today at 3:30 p.m in Conference Room 8, on the United Nations Mission of Observers in Prevlaka (UNMOP). He reminded correspondents that Prevlaka was an area facing the Adriatic Sea contested by Croatia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. There were 26 United Nations military observers monitoring the area, and the current mandate of the Mission would expire next January.

The Secretary-General was back at Headquarters today, Mr. Brandt continued, noting that he had a tight schedule. At 11 a.m. he met with the Foreign Minister of Costa Rica, Fernando Naranjo Villalobos. He then participated in the signing of an agreement between the United Nations and the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea. That tribunal, based in Hamburg, Germany, became operational in October 1996, and had 21 judges selected for a period of nine years. Under the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea the purpose of the Tribunal was to reach peaceful settlements of disputes, and to interpret and apply the Convention. It was the first time that the Organization was signing an agreement with a judicial body, the Associate Spokesman pointed out, adding that the agreement would create a solid ground for close cooperation between the United Nations and the Tribunal. Drawing attention to an interesting coincidence at the signing today, he noted that it would be conducted by two nationals of Ghana: the Secretary-General, and the President of the Tribunal, Thomas Mensah.

The Secretary-General would this afternoon also meet with the Director of the United Nations Drug Control Programme, Pino Arlacchi, who would be reporting to the Secretary-General on his latest trip to Santo Domingo and Mexico. Mr. Arlacchi would tell the Secretary-General that it went very well and that he obtained a great deal of cooperation from those countries, Mr. Brandt stated. Mr. Arlacchi would also discuss with the Secretary-General the preparations for the special session expected to take place in June 1998; additionally, he would report on his latest initiatives regarding Afghanistan. Mr. Brandt said Mr. Arlacchi could not accept the invitation of the Spokesman's Office to meet with correspondents tomorrow, as he would be leaving the country tonight. He had, however, promised to be available sometime next year, the Associate Spokesman said.

Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 18 December 1997

The status of outstanding contributions as of 15 December was out, Mr. Brandt said. It showed that the total of outstanding contributions as of that date was over $2.1 billion, of which $516.1 million was for the regular budget, $15 million was for the international tribunals, and $1.6 billion was for peacekeeping operations.

He announced a press release from Geneva on the work of the Council of the United Nations Compensation Commission, the panel with responsibility for dealing with claims resulting from Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, which said that at the end of their deliberations the panel had recommended the award of $2,220,000 in respect of nine claims that were included in the report. The panel referred consideration of two claims to a future instalment.

Turning to El Nino, Mr. Brandt pointed out that the General Assembly was expected to adopt a resolution today calling for international cooperation to reduce the impact of the phenomenon.

He drew attention to a television screening, at 2:15 today on Channel 6, of the Department of Public Information's annual 15-minute video, "Year in Review", on the work of the Organization in 1997. "I saw it, it's quite good", the Associate Spokesman said. "It gives you in 15 minutes a very condensed, well-edited idea of what the United Nations did and was able to achieve in 1997, which was a lot."

Asked for an update on the response to the "spontaneous demonstration" against the human rights investigators in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and "what the United Nations was doing to advance the process", Mr. Brandt said his understanding was that the team had been unable to return to either Wendji or Mbandaka. He understood the security threat was important enough to make them cancel what they were doing in that area and return to Kinshasa, and that they had been unable to resolve the situation with the authorities. He said he also understood that some members of the team had left Kinshasa "at least momentarily", adding, "we are waiting, we are in a standby mode".

Had the team members returned home? he was asked. "I think that some of them, if not for home, have left the country. This is not to say that they have left the mission; the mission is there, for all practical purposes."

Had there been a formal communication from Headquarters to President Laurent Kabila's Government complaining about the lack of security? Mr. Brandt said that the next few days were "going to be critical for establishing some kind of definite solution to this impasse. I think we will need to see some action, or some kind of assurances from the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for us to be able to proceed with this mission."

Daily Press Briefing - 4 - 18 December 1997

It had been "a long, long time, since August", he continued, "and we need to do this job and we need to do it no matter what, so we hope it will happen soon."

Alex Taukatch, spokesman for the President of the General Assembly, Hennadiy Udovenko (Ukraine), began by picking up on a number of remarks by Mr. Brandt. Concerning Afghanistan, he noted that the issue had been discussed in the Fifth Committee yesterday because of the budget implications, and the Committee was expected to revisit the matter today. The draft resolution in question was A/52/L.68, he said, while the budget implications were contained in A/C.5/52/33.

He announced that the President of the General Assembly had this morning taped a World Chronicle Television programme that would be aired today on in-house television at 2:30 p.m.

On the subject of El Nino -- again taking a cue from Mr. Brandt -- Mr. Taukatch said the package of reports of the Second Committee would be considered this afternoon in the plenary; the draft resolution concerning El Nino was in one of them. Holding up a stack of documents containing the reports of the Second Committee, he advised correspondents to be guided by today's Journal, which listed all the items and subjects the Assembly would be acting on.

Mr. Taukatch said the Assembly had begun this morning by continuing from where it left off yesterday, on agenda item 41 concerning "Assistance in mine clearance". There had been four speakers on the subject, after which the Assembly adopted resolution A/52/L.69, without a vote. Following that, the Assembly took up a batch of six items, all of which it decided to defer to the fifty-third session, following the pattern of the previous session. Those items included: declaration of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) regarding the military attack against Libya in 1986 (item 51); armed Israeli aggression against Iraqi nuclear installations (item 52); consequences of the Iraqi occupation of, and aggression against Kuwait (item 53); implementation of the resolutions of the United Nations (item 54); launching of global negotiations on international economic cooperation for development (item 56); and the question of the Comoran Island of Mayotte (item 55).

The Assembly had then acted on two other items, concerning the situation of democracy and human rights in Haiti and the situation in Central America. Finally, this morning, Mr. Taukatch said, the Assembly took up the report of the Credentials Committee which it approved without a vote. In the debate, the United Arab Emirates had spoken. Before this action, Iran and Pakistan had also taken the floor. The right of reply was exercised by Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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Concerning the issue of United Nations reform, he said the open-ended informal consultations of the plenary yesterday had carried into the early part of the evening. As a result, he told correspondents they could pick up draft resolution A/52/L.72 which concerned the recommendations part of the Secretary-General's report on United Nations reform. He stressed that that draft resolution had been submitted by the President of the General Assembly, and was a product of the "extensive and intensive" consultations conducted by the "Friends of the President" on reform: the permanent representatives of Botswana and Ireland, with the active participation of Mr. Udovenko himself. The Assembly was expected to take up that item tomorrow.

Drawing attention to the appointments of the President today, he said that at 12:30 p.m. the President would attend a special event on the thirty- eighth floor known as a "gavel" ceremony, where he would be presented with a ceremonial gavel by the Secretary-General. At 1:15 p.m., he would host a luncheon in honour of the Secretary-General. Mr. Taukatch said that yesterday afternoon the President had held a meeting with the Permanent Representatives of the five permanent members of the Security Council and the Permanent Representative of Finland. That had been part of his regular consultations on the issue of the reform of the Security Council. The spokesman noted that Mr. Udovenko would now devote "more and more time" to that issue, reminding correspondents that the working group on the subject would meet towards the end of January.

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