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, told correspondents at today's noon briefing that the Secretary-General and his party were heading towards the White House in Washington, D.C., at the start of his official visit to the United States' capital. They had an unscheduled 30-minute meeting on arrival at the airport with the United States Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, Princeton Lyman. That meeting was from 10 to 10:30 a.m.

At the White House, before meeting with the President, they would hold two sets of staff discussions, Mr. Eckhard said. The first would be between the Secretary-General, Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette and Assistant Secretary-General John Ruggie, on the United Nations side; and the Special Assistant to the President for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, Richard Clarke, the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Adviser for Global Affairs, Bruce Riedel, and the Acting Director for Intelligence Matters at the National Security Council, Mary McCarthy, on the United States side.

A second and parallel discussion would take place between Under- Secretary-General for Management Joseph Connor and United Nations Information Centre Director Joe Sills, and Mr. Lyman, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Mike Sheehan, and the Director of Global Affairs at the National Security Council, Len Hawley.

The Spokesman said the Secretary-General, accompanied by the Deputy Secretary-General, Mr. Connor and Mr. Ruggie, would meet with President Bill Clinton at 12:45 p.m. That would be followed by a private meeting between the Secretary-General, Ms. Frechette and President Clinton.

At 1:45 p.m., the Secretary-General and his team would have lunch with National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, the Spokesman said. At 2:30 p.m., they would attend an International Women's Day Event at the White House. The President, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Attorney General Janet Reno would all be present.

Mr. Eckhard said the Secretary-General and his team would meet at 3:30 p.m. with Senators Jesse Helms and Joseph Biden, the majority and minority leaders of the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee. That Committee had drafted the compromise legislation on the payment of arrears which in the end was not adopted last fall because of a controversy over a rider on abortion. The meeting with the two Senators was added to the afternoon programme.

At 4:15 p.m., the Secretary-General and his team would meet with Secretary of State Albright and her senior staff, Mr. Eckhard said. The United Nations team would attend a dinner hosted by Secretary Albright at 7 p.m. That dinner would be attended by Secretary of Defence William Cohen, Mr. Berger, and the Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations, Ambassador Bill Richardson.

The Secretary-General would address a press conference at 9 a.m. tomorrow at the National Press Club, Mr. Eckhard said. That would be followed by a meeting with Defence Secretary Cohen and his senior staff at the Pentagon at 10:15 a.m. The Secretary-General and his team would leave Washington, D.C. at 11:30 a.m.

On Iraq, Mr. Eckhard said that the Commissioner of the Special Group charged with the inspections of the presidential sites, Jayantha Dhanapala, arrived in Baghdad today. He was briefed by the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) at its Baghdad centre. Mr. Dhanapala would be meeting with Iraq's Deputy Foreign Minister Al-Kaysi at 7:30 p.m. and they would discuss a possible meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.

The Spokesman said Mr. Dhanapala was expected to brief the diplomatic corps in Baghdad tomorrow. He was scheduled to leave Baghdad on 14 March for Geneva, where he would attend the Secretary-General's Advisory Board on Disarmament. After that, he might go back to Iraq to begin preparations for the inspections of the presidential sites. That work could begin later this month.

The technical talks on the expanded oil-for-food programme were continuing this morning and were scheduled to end later in the day, the Spokesman told correspondents. The Foreign Minister of Iraq, Mohammed Said Al-Sahaf, and Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette, who was expected to be back from Washington, D.C. at midday tomorrow, would meet in the afternoon to conclude the talks.

Mr. Eckhard announced that the Security Council would be meeting 3:30 p.m. to discuss the 90-day report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of the oil-for-food programme for Iraq, as well as the 90-day report of the Sanctions Committee (661 Committee). The head of the United Nations Iraq programme, Benon Sevan, would introduce the Secretary-General's report.

The Spokesman said the Council had taken up the situation in Kosovo yesterday afternoon. The United Kingdom delegation briefed the Council on the result of the Contact Group meeting in London on Monday. The Kosovo situation could come up again in the afternoon under other matters.

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He said the Council was expected to meet tomorrow afternoon at 3:30 p.m. to be briefed by Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Kieran Prendergast on the situation in the Great Lakes region of Africa. The Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Cyprus, Diego Cordovez, would also brief the Council.

Mr. Eckhard announced the arrival yesterday in Cambodia of the Director of the Asia and Pacific Division of the Department of Political Affairs, Francesc Vandrell. Before going to Cambodia, Mr. Vandrell had attended the meeting of the "Friends of Cambodia" in Manila last Friday. In Phneom Penh, he met with First Prime Minister Ung Huot, the Minister of the Interior, the leaders of the opposition parties, the National Electoral Commission, representatives of the United Nations system in Cambodia, and the diplomatic community. He did not meet with Second Prime Minister Hun Sen, who had cancelled all appointments because of the death of his mother.

Mr. Eckhard drew attention to the decision this week by the United Nations Mission of Observers in Tajikistan (UNMOT) to withdraw some of its teams at remote locations because of difficulties in obtaining facilities for UNMOT's air assets at Dushanbe airport. He said his office had been informed in the morning that the Dushanbe airport authorities had finally given the green light for United Nations air operations. In the afternoon, an UNMOT helicopter flew from Dushanbe to Garm and back, and an UNMOT fixed-wing aircraft was expected to land at Dushanbe airport tomorrow. Two teams had already been withdrawn to Dushanbe on helicopters of the Russian Border Forces. Those teams would be redeployed as soon as all United Nations air assets were operating freely.

Mr. Eckhard also drew attention to a press release announcing the Secretary-General's appointment of Brigadier-General Hernan Sergio Espinosa Davies (Chile) as the new Chief Military Observer of the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), with effect from 21 March 1998. Brigadier-General Davies succeeded Major-General Choung-Jun Ahn (Republic of Korea), who had served as head of the mission since March 1997 and would be returning to national service. The Secretary-General wished to take the opportunity to pay tribute to Major-General Ahn for the professional and effective manner in which he provided leadership to UNMOGIP.

The Spokesman also announced that a report of the Office of Internal Oversight Services on the use of consultants in the United Nations during 1996 was available on the racks for correspondents. The Office's audit disclosed various shortcomings in the hiring of consultants. It recommended, among other things, that there should be clear definitions in hiring, and that computerized rosters of candidates should be maintained and updated regularly. According to the report, the United Nations employed over 2,500 consultants in 1996.

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On the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Mr. Eckhard said that the trial of Jean-Paul Akayesu would enter its final phase tomorrow morning. Mr. Akayesu, who was charged with genocide and crimes against humanity, would testify in his own defense. The prosecutor and defense would make their final submissions to the Court later in the month. A final judgement was expected in the middle of the year. That would be the first judgement delivered in the Tribunal's history.

Mr. Eckhard said that preliminary oral hearings at the International Court of Justice on a border dispute between Cameroon and Nigeria concluded today. The dispute centred on sovereignty over the Bakassi Peninsula. Nigeria contended that the Court had no jurisdiction over the matter, but Cameroon wanted the Court to determine the frontier on the Peninsula. The Court would now deliberate on the case. A press release was expected in the afternoon on the case and would be made available as soon as possible.

On Western Sahara, the identification process, which had been temporarily suspended since 27 February, resumed today, Mr. Eckhard said. Some differences between the parties over the identification of the contested tribes prevented the adoption of the March programme. A total of 1,500 out of the 4,000 people from the contested tribes were in fact identified in February. The remaining people were yet to be identified. The United Nations Identification Commission would identify non-contested applicants for the time being.

He said Spain had become the forty-fourth State to pay its regular budget dues in full this year. Spain paid over $27 million today. At this time last year, only 41 Member States had paid in full.

The Spokesman said there would be a closed meeting at 12 noon today of the Security Council Committee set up by resolution 661 (1996) concerning the situation between Iraq and Kuwait. The Chairman of that Committee, Ambassador Antonio Monteiro, would brief the press after the meeting.

Mr. Eckhard announced that his office was undergoing a rather substantial turnover in staff and would in the meantime be borrowing people to fill the gap. He asked correspondents for understanding. Agnes Marcaillou had been on loan from the Department of Political Affairs for three months, and had returned. Sophie Sebirot-Nossoff could not have her contact renewed, and left yesteday. Jessica Jiji was now on loan from the Department of Public Information to replace Ms. Sebirot-Nossoff.

Asked why the Security Council did not issue any official statement on Kosovo after its meeting yesterday and whether China was the only dissenting voice, Mr. Eckhard said he could not say which country took what position. "As I understand it, the Contact Group is taking the lead. The European Union is

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dealing with it. The Council was merely informed yesterday by the delegate of the United Kingdom about the Contact Group's deliberations in London." At this time, the ball did not appear to be in the Security Council's court.

A correspondent asked if more meetings would be held today on the oil- for-food talks, Mr. Eckhard said the technical meetings ended this morning and that the next meeting would be the formal meeting tomorrow afternoon. Asked if that would be an open meeting, the Spokesman said it would be closed.

Another correspondent asked if the Secretary-General had Kosovo on his agenda in Washington, D.C. The Spokesman said: "To my knowledge, he would not have that on his agenda in Washington. I can't say it won't come up".

Asked about the Secretary-General's agenda in the Middle East, Mr. Eckhard said it was an official visit to five countries. Contrary to some reports, the Secretary-General was not trying to interject himself in the Middle East peace process. It was basically an official visit to those countries and to the United Nations peacekeeping missions in those countries, as well as to the humanitarian programmes there, such as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Asked for an interim progress report on the talks about the oil-for-food programme, Mr. Eckhard said he could not give any interim report. "We will have to see what comes out of the formal meeting tomorrow."

To a question on whether the United Nations thought that an arms embargo on Yugoslavia would have an impact, Mr. Eckhard said it had not been discussed in the Security Council, as far as he knew.

Alex Taukatch, spokesman for General Assembly President Hennadiy Udovenko (Ukraine), said Mr. Udovenko was in Tokyo today on an official visit to Japan. He met this morning with Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, with whom he discussed a number of international issues focusing in part on the reform of the United Nations, including that of the Security Council.

The Assembly President also met with the Foreign Minister of Japan and visited the United Nations University, where he delivered a speech. He also held a press conference where he stressed that he was doing his best to make sure that there was some progress regarding reform of the Security Council. Following his visit to Japan, the President would visit Malaysia before returning to New York.

Mr. Taukatch reminded correspondents that the seventeenth meeting of the open-ended working group on reform of the Council would be meeting today. In the absence of the President, the group's meetings were chaired by the two Co-Chairmen -- the representatives of Thailand and Finland.

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He said the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) was expected to conclude its general discussions today on three items; financial reports and audited financial statements and reports of the Board of Auditors; the review of the efficiency of the administrative and financial functioning of the United Nations; and the programme budget for the biennium 1998-1999.

Mr. Taukatch said the spotlight of the Committee's discussions yesterday was on the financial situation of the Organization, with a number of delegations expressing concern about the problem. The representative of Indonesia, speaking on behalf of the "Group of 77" developing countries and China, said the Group remained deeply concerned about the Organization's financial situation. The representative of Colombia, speaking on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement, reiterated its belief that the United Nations deteriorating financial situation was mainly due to non-compliance with the provisions of the Charter by some developed countries. The representative of the United Kingdom, speaking on behalf of the European Union and associated States, stressed that the continued recourse to borrowing from the peacekeeping operations account was of particular concern.

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