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 President of the General Assembly.)

At the outset of today's noon briefing, Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, said the Security Council was in the midst of adopting a resolution on the Central African Republic. Among other decisions, the Council would welcome the Secretary-General's appointment of a special representative to the Central African Republic to assist the parties implement the Bangui Agreements. It also asked the Secretary-General to submit a report on the situation in that country no later than 23 February with recommendations regarding the establishment of a United Nations peacekeeping operation. The Council intended to take a decision on the issue by 16 March.

On Iraq, Mr. Eckhard said the Secretary-General continued to follow closely diplomatic efforts in search of a political solution. This morning, he discussed the state-of-play in separate telephone conversations with the Foreign Ministers of Turkey and France. Early this afternoon, he would speak with the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, Esmat Abdel Ahmed Meguid, who returned to Cairo from Baghdad today. In response to the "many queries on the subject", Mr. Eckhard said the Secretary-General had no plans, at present, to travel to Iraq.

To date, a total of 4 million tons of commodities had arrived in Iraq under the "oil-for-food" programme -- equivalent to 174 kilogrammes of food for each Iraqi, Mr. Eckhard said. About 90 per cent of the food had been distributed to Iraqi beneficiaries. In January, the World Food Programme (WFP) distributed on time the entire ration available to almost all villages and towns in the northern governerates.

At present, 349 United Nations staff -- 214 in Baghdad and 135 in the north -- were involved in the humanitarian programme in Iraq as well as in regular United Nations agency programmes. A fact sheet on the food basket and a summary of the press briefing by the United Nations spokesman in Baghdad were available in the Spokesman's Office.

At 11 a.m. today, the Secretary-General addressed the opening of the 1998 session of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, Mr. Eckhard said. United Nations-Television would air the speech at around 12:30 p.m. today. A press release of the Secretary-General's comments was available yesterday as Press Release SG/SM/6453.

The Secretary-General's address to the meeting of the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, which would begin at 2 p.m. today, was also available in the Spokesman's Office. The speech was embargoed until that time.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Committee of Five on Sierra Leone began meeting in New York today at the Nigerian Mission to the United Nations, Mr. Eckhard said. The ministerial-level meeting was being chaired by the Permanent Representative of Nigeria and would be attended by the Secretary-General's Special Envoy to Sierra Leone, Francis Okelo, as an observer, and by the Foreign Minister of Sierra Leone, Shirley Gbujama.

The Committee of Five would meet with the Secretary-General today and brief members of the Security Council tomorrow. The Secretary-General was currently finalizing his report on Sierra Leone, which the Council was expected to take up by mid-February.

There was a humanitarian mission to Sierra Leone, Mr. Eckhard continued. An inter-agency expert team would arrive in Conakry, Guinea, today and travel to Sierra Leone in a few days to assess the humanitarian situation. The mission was headed by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, with participation by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Mr. Eckhard said the team planned to visit Freetown, Makeni and Kambia during its week-long stay in Sierra Leone. The mission would return to New York on 21 February and submit its report to the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Sergio Vieira de Mello. The mission was requested by the Security Council at the end of December 1997.

There had been a number of questions regarding the "Olympic Truce", since the Secretary-General's message yesterday, Mr. Eckhard said. The Truce was adopted by the General Assembly unanimously in 1993 and renewed in November 1997, with 178 co-sponsors. It expressed the international community's real desire for a peaceful world united against violence. In his statement, the Secretary-General called on all nations to observe the Olympic Truce. While Assembly resolutions were not binding the statement expressed the shared desire of the international community that it be respected.

On other matters, Mr. Eckhard said a UNHCR-update was available in the Spokesman's Office. The Agency was appealing for $10.8 million for the repatriation and reintegration of refugees from Mali and Niger. Since 1995, over 120,000 refugees had returned to Mali, most from Mauritania and Burkino Faso, the main asylum countries for an estimated 150,000 who fled conflict in their country in the early 1990s.

Some 4,000 refugees from Niger were in Algeria since political turmoil in their country in the late 1980s and the renewed insurgency in the early 1990s. They were now free to return to Niger and UNHCR hoped to complete its repatriation operation before the end of 1998.

Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 5 Feburary 1998

The UNICEF today expressed concern about the impact of efforts to rescue east Asia's sagging economies, saying it was not clear that children would be protected from effects of fiscal austerity, Mr. Eckhard said.

Quoting UNICEF's Executive Director, Carol Bellamy, the Spokesman said, "We are all too familiar with the experience of the 1980s, when dozens of countries in Africa and Latin America were obliged to accept structural adjustment, but without a human face. The result was a lost decade of deepening poverty, rising inequality, slow growth and mass unemployment -- a slow motion catastrophe whose effects are still being felt. History must not be allowed to repeat itself". A UNICEF press release on the topic was available in the Spokesman's Office.

Mr. Eckhard then announced a number of press conferences to be held tomorrow, 6 February, in room 226.

At 11:15 a.m., the Chairperson of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, Salma Khan, expert from Bangladesh, would hold a briefing. It would also be attended by two experts, Ayse Feride Acar (Turkey) and Vice-Chairperson Carlota Bustelo Garcia del Real (Spain). For further information contact Elizabeth Ruzicka-Dempsey on 963-1742 or Betty Perry- Carpenter on 963-1786.

At 1:30 p.m., there would be a briefing by the Division for Sustainable Development, to discuss the consultative meeting among regional institutions being held from 4 to 6 February in Conference Room 5 (DC-II), as announced at yesterday's briefing.

Mr. Eckhard then drew attention to a note in today's Journal on the informal presentation by a Vice Chairman of the World Bank entitled, "The Long March: A Reform Agenda for Latin America and the Caribbean in the Next Decade". The presentation would take place on Friday, 13 February, from 1:30 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. in Conference Room 7.

A correspondent asked what the Secretary-General had discussed in his meeting yesterday with Ambassador Richard Butler, the Executive Chairman of the Special Commission (UNSCOM) monitoring Iraq's disarmament. Would Ambassador Butler speak to the Council today and, if so, what would be discussed? Mr. Eckhard said the Secretary-General and the Executive Chairman had discussed UNSCOM matters in general. As announced yesterday, the Council had asked Ambassador Butler to brief them at 3:30 p.m. today on a variety of UNSCOM-related issues. Correspondents should ask Ambassador Butler for more details when he came out of his meeting with the Council, the Spokesman added.

Daily Press Briefing - 4 - 5 Feburary 1998

In reply to a question about the Secretary-General's discussions yesterday with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, Mr. Eckhard said he did not yet have a read-out on the meeting and asked the correspondent to check with the Spokesman's Office after the briefing for further details.

Another correspondent asked what the Secretary-General had discussed in his telephone conversation today with the Turkish Foreign Minister . Mr. Eckhard replied that the Secretary-General had discussed Turkey's diplomatic efforts on the situation in Iraq. He was basically staying in touch with everyone who was making an active effort to find a political solution.

Asked if there had been any progress report on the investigation of an alleged incident involving a Pakistani soldier in Haiti, Mr. Eckhard said he did not know how long the report would take but would let correspondents know when it was completed.

The Turkish Prime Minister was quoted this morning as saying that the Turkish army would mass troops on its border with Iraq, a correspondent said. Did the Spokesman have any comment? he asked. Mr. Eckhard said he did not.

A correspondent asked why a report on Africa from the time of the former Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, was only published recently. Mr. Eckhard replied that he had answered the question last week. At the time the report was completed, the Security Council decided that because of instability in the area it would be best if the report was not published. In more recent Council discussions, with talk of the need to investigate the past, the Council decided that the report could be useful, in the current context. It therefore asked for it to be issued as a document.

Alex Taukatch, spokesman for Assembly President Hennadiy Udovenko (Ukraine), said the President had begun a "very busy day" by meeting at 9:30 a.m. with the Bureau of the open-ended working group on the reform of the Security Council. As a result, they came up with a proposed programme of work. This week, the working group was discussing organizational matters. Next week, the working group was expected to get down to substantive issues.

Referring to a correspondent's question as to why it took so long to resolve a "few organizational matters", Mr. Taukatch stressed that the discussions were very involved on extremely difficult and sensitive issues that were of tremendous importance to all Member States. Yesterday, for example, there was an interesting exchange on whether there was any light at the end of the tunnel. Curiously, today the lights in Conference Room 2, where the group was meeting, went "on the blink", but the President urged delegates not to be discouraged by the problems with illumination.

Daily Press Briefing - 5 - 5 Feburary 1998

Mr. Taukatch said the President would meet this afternoon with the Permanent Representatives of the Russian Federation, Georgia and Mexico; the Permanent Representative of Indonesia, in his capacity as the Chairman of the "Group of 77" developing countries; and the Permanent Observer for Palestine. Later in the day, the President was scheduled to meet with the Secretary- General. Most of those meetings would focus on issues before the open-ended working group on Security Council reform.

The President had received a letter from the President of the International Olympic Committee, Juan Antonio Samaranch, expressing sincere gratitude for Assembly President Udovenko's appeal for nations to observe the "Olympic Truce" during the Olympic Winter Games in Nagano, Japan. Mr. Samaranch said that the appeal had been read out to the full session of the International Olympic Committee and distributed to the media.

"I can assure you that your gesture was highly appreciated. It is our hope that the Olympic Truce will be observed and that it will foster international dialogue", Mr. Samaranch wrote. He also assured the President that the United Nations flag was flying over Nagano and all Olympic sites.

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