DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

Press Briefing

DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, began today's noon briefing by announcing that the Security Council had unanimously adopted resolution 1148 (1998) on Western Sahara. The Council approved the deployment of an engineering unit for demining, as well as additional administrative staff. The Council also expressed its intention to favourably consider further increasing United Nations military and civilian police personnel in the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) at a later stage.

Also this morning, Council members had reached agreement on a draft resolution on the United Nations Observer Mission in Angola (MONUA), which was a follow-on to the peacekeeping mission which would expire at the end of the month. The draft that was agreed upon was submitted by the so-called troika of observer States -- United States, Russian Federation and Portugal -- and the Council was expected to adopt it tomorrow, Tuesday, 27 January. Also tomorrow, the Council members would consider the United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG). The Secretary-General's Special Observer in Georgia, Liviu Bota, who was visiting Headquarters, would brief the Council.

On Iraq, Mr. Eckhard said the initial draft of the Secretary-General's supplementary report on the "oil-for-food" programme was considered by the Secretary-General over the weekend. Given the time needed for translations and the additional holiday this week on Thursday, there was a possibility that the report would not be issued until Monday, 2 February, rather than Friday. There had been no change in the status of oil contracts since last Friday. It was still 32 approved, out of the 33 submitted, with one pending.

Mr. Eckhard said the Secretary-General's plane was now touching down in Paris. He had a full programme of meetings there tomorrow, starting with the President of the French Senate, René Monory. It would be followed by a meeting with the Foreign Minister, Hubert Vedrine, and a luncheon to be hosted by the Minister in the Secretary-General's honour. In the afternoon, the Secretary-General would be received by the President of France, Jacques Chirac, and after that he would meet Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. It would be the Secretary-General's first meeting with the Prime Minister and one of the reasons for his stop-over, en route to the Davos, Switzerland, conference.

Mr. Eckhard then announced that the following was attributable to the Spokesman:

"The Secretary-General has learned with outrage of the news of a bomb attack on a major Buddhist shrine in Kandy, Sri Lanka, on 25 January, and the resulting loss of life and destruction.

"As he has done on many occasions, the Secretary-General strongly condemns the use of terrorist tactics in all circumstances. He deplores attempts to divide human beings on religious and ethnic grounds. He extends his sympathies to the families of the victims and appeals for calm and restraint amidst reports of reprisals provoked by the bombing of the shrine." (See today's Press Release SG/SM/6445.)

Mr. Eckhard said that information on the location of graves of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots was exchanged last Friday between the Greek Cypriot Humanitarian Affairs Commissioner, Takis Christopoulos, and the Turkish Cypriot Representative, Rustem Tatar, in the presence of the Secretary-General's Deputy Special Representative, Gustav Feissel. A note on the subject was put out last Friday, he said. A three-person Committee on Missing Persons was established in 1981 following an agreement between the parties. After the resignation of one of its members in 1996, the Secretary- General indicated that he would appoint a replacement as soon as he was informed of the exchange of information between the parties. The Secretary- General, therefore, welcomed the developments on Friday and had been in touch with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) concerning the selection of the third member of the Committee on Missing Persons.

On other matters, Mr. Eckhard recalled that in his reform plan, the Secretary-General had called for a reorientation of the Department of Humanitarian Affairs. Last week, Sergio de Mello, the new head of that Department, who is also Emergency Relief Coordinator, presented a new structure of the Department to the Secretary-General, who had now approved it. Under the new structure, by the end of this month the number of posts for the Department, which had been renamed the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, would decrease from 360 to 137, through redistribution of responsibilities to other agencies or units in the Secretariat. Roughly half of the new staff -- 76 -- would be in New York, with the remainder in Geneva. "This represents an increase in strength of the Department in Geneva", Mr. Eckhard said. He also said that Mr. de Mello had identified three core functions for the new entity: coordination of humanitarian emergency response; policy development; and advocacy on humanitarian issues.

Mr. Eckhard drew attention to the weekly schedule of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which was available in room S-378.

He then announced that Slovakia had today become the eighteenth Member State to pay its assessed contribution to the budget for 1998 in full, with a cheque for $557,363. The figure was identical to paid-up Member States at this time a year ago.

Last Friday, Finland signed the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, and that had been followed by Germany this morning, bringing to 10 the number of countries that had done so.

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Mr. Eckhard drew attention to two troop contributors' meetings announced in today's Journal: the first was for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) to be held at 3:30 p.m. today in Conference Room 7; and then at 4:15 p.m. in the same room, on UNOMIG. Both were closed, as meetings of the troop contributors normally were, he added. Also in the Journal, he said correspondents would see that the Permanent Representative of Japan, Hisashi Owada, would give a briefing on the outcome of the International Conference on Preventive Strategy, which had been convened by the Government of Japan from 13 to 15 January. Correspondents were also invited to the meeting, which would take place in the Trusteeship Council Chamber today at 3:30 p.m.

Mr. Eckhard said it had been his sad duty to inform correspondents last Friday afternoon that Moses Schoenfeld had died on that day and that a funeral service was held for him yesterday. Mr. Schoenfeld covered the United Nations for more than 30 years and earned a solid reputation as a respected journalist and expert in multilateral diplomacy. On behalf of the Secretary-General, the Department of Public Information, and all the staff of the Office of the Spokesman, he expressed condolences to Mr. Schoenfeld's friends and family, in particular to his two daughters and son.

On a final subject, the Central African Republic, Mr. Eckhard said the Secretary-General had submitted to the Security Council today his report on the situation in that country. Prior to doing so, the Secretary-General had, in December, dispatched a technical mission there, headed by the Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Hedi Annabi. The mission had assessed the status of implementation of the Bangui Agreements and had formulated the Secretary-General's recommendations on further international support for the country after the mandate of the Inter-African Mission to Monitor the Implementation of the Bangui Agreements (MISAB) expired on 6 February.

In his letter of 8 January to the Secretary-General, President Ange-Felix Patassé of the Central African Republic stated that it would be essential for the United Nations to ensure that a credible peacekeeping force was maintained in his country, according to Mr. Eckhard. The MISAB heavily relied on France for its logistical and financial support. However, France was preparing to withdraw all its troops, currently totalling about 1,400, and its logistical support by mid-April. Under such circumstances, it was the Secretary-General's view that the only viable option for the maintenance of stability in the Central African Republic appeared to be the establishment and deployment of another peacekeeping operation authorized by the international community.

The Secretary-General, according to Mr. Eckhard, had, therefore, provided the Security Council with a rough idea of a United Nations peacekeeping operation, should the Council decide to consider such an option. In the meantime, the Secretary-General had recommended an extension of the MISAB mandate until 15 March. At the same time, he had recommended that the

Daily Press Briefing - 4 - 26 January 1998

Council express its readiness, in principle, to establish a United Nations peacekeeping operation in the Central African Republic, on the basis of a more detailed concept of operation that he intended to submit to the Council in early March. Copies of the report were available for correspondents, he added.

Asked about the status of the Commission of Enquiry to Rwanda, which was established by the Security Council in 1996, Mr. Eckhard said that the Commission had been disbanded. The correspondent commented that the Commission's report did not mention that it was being disbanded. Mr. Eckhard said he would look into it.

A correspondent asked whether the Secretary-General would visit Iraq during his Middle East tour in March, to which Mr. Eckhard replied "no". He said that the fifth country the Secretary-General would visit was Israel. The others were Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. He told the correspondent that the trip was announced about a week ago and that a detailed programme would not be available for correspondents until just before the Secretary-General's departure.

A correspondent said there had been no information on last Friday's meeting of the countries contributing observers to the International Police Task Force. Mr. Eckhard recalled announcing that the participants would be given a briefing and that there would also be a discussion on the increased complexity of the role of the police observers in that mission. He had also said efforts would be made to obtain "a readout" on that meeting for correspondents. That would still be done, he added.

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