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 Security Council had postponed the two briefings by United Nations officials on Cyprus and the Great Lakes region of Africa, which had been scheduled for this afternoon. They would now be held tomorrow morning. Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Kieran Prendergast would brief on the Great Lakes while the Secretary-General's Special Adviser, Diego Cordovez, would speak on Cyprus.

Mr. Eckhard said he had initially planned to have Mr. Cordovez brief correspondents tomorrow, but he had been informed by the Special Adviser that he would not be able to do it. So that was now cancelled. The Spokesman said Mr. Cordovez would visit Cyprus from 17 to 22 March and that he would be expected to meet with both Glafkos Clerides and Rauf Denktash, respective leaders of the Greek and the Turkish Cypriot communities. Mr. Cordovez would then visit Athens on 23 March and Ankara on 24 March, and would return to Geneva on 26 March, where he would brief special envoys of the countries concerned on the situation in Cyprus.

A group of oil experts who would be looking into Iraq's capacity to produce and export oil up to the authorized level of $5.2 billion had arrived in Baghdad today, the Spokesman said. They would meet this evening with Iraqi Foreign Ministry officials and others involved in Iraq's oil production and export. The United Nations experts would visit various sites, beginning this weekend. They were scheduled to leave Iraq on 23 March.

The Spokesman also told correspondents that the technical talks on the expanded "oil-for-food" programme were continuing this morning in New York between the United Nations and Iraqi officials. They were working on a report to be submitted to this afternoon's wrap-up session. So there was one more technical session that we had not foreseen yesterday, Mr. Eckhard explained.

Mr. Eckhard informed correspondents about several fact sheets on the oil-for-food programme sent to his office by the programme coordinator's office in Baghdad. One of the fact sheets had the breakdown of the humanitarian contracts by countries, and the other was on the Saybolt oil overseers.

In continuation of his visit to Washington, D.C., the Secretary-General met at 8 a.m. today with 18 members of the Senate Democratic caucus, Mr. Eckhard said. The meeting, which was not on his original schedule for Washington, was chaired by Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Senate Minority Leader. When his office first announced the meeting yesterday, 10 senators had been anticipated to attend. That number nearly doubled this morning.

He said the senators pledged their support for payment of United States arrears and congratulated the Secretary-General on his diplomatic mission to Iraq. They also discussed the situation in Kosovo, as well as several United Nations peacekeeping missions.

After his press conference, the Secretary-General met at the Pentagon this morning with United States Defense Secretary William Cohen and his senior aides, Mr. Eckhard said. They discussed the situations in Iraq, Kosovo and Georgia.

The Spokesman said the Secretary-General's 9:30 a.m. press conference at the National Press Club was carried live at Headquarters. The full transcript of the press conference, which had just ended a few minutes ago, was available in his office, he added. He thanked the Verbatim Unit for its quick and excellent work.

Before his departure from Washington, Mr. Eckhard continued, the Secretary-General had a telephone conversation at the airport with United States House Representative Speaker Newt Gingrich and with the ranking minority member of the House Committee on International Relations, Lee Hamilton. At the time of the briefing, the Secretary-General was in the air, on his way back to New York.

To shore up support for the Memorandum of Understanding on Iraq, which he negotiated, the Secretary-General planned to visit Moscow, Beijing and London later this month and early in the next, Mr. Eckhard announced. The visits would bring to a conclusion the Secretary-General's planned calls at the capitals of the five permanent members of the Security Council. The Spokesman said the Secretary-General would be in Moscow on 29 and 30 March, in Beijing on 31 March and 1 April, and in London on 3 and 4 April. The Secretary-General had just visited Washington and was in Paris before and immediately after his visit to Iraq.

On Angola, Mr. Eckhard announced that Secretary-General's Special Representative Alioune Blondin Beye had returned to Luanda yesterday to a warm welcome. Mr. Beye had been out of the mission for many weeks because of heart surgery. The Spokesman said Mr. Beye had expressed his appreciation for the efforts made in his absence to advance the peace process and thanked the parties for their continued cooperation.

Still on Angola, Mr. Eckhard said the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) was formally legalized yesterday as a legitimate political party. The Standing Committee of the Angolan Council of Ministers issued a declaration to that effect. The UNITA now could freely conduct its political activities throughout the country. UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi and other leaders of the party were expected to move into the capital by 31 March in accordance with the newly agreed timetable, the Spokesman added. The United Nations Mission of Observers in Angola (MONUA) also

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confirmed yesterday that UNITA no longer had military forces with the exception of the 1,645 residual forces who should be demobilized by 15 March.

Mr. Eckhard said the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, had issued a statement in Geneva today on Kosovo. The text was made available to correspondents an hour ago. She said she had met yesterday with the Chargé d'affaires of the Permanent Mission of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to the United Nations and had handed him a letter addressed to President Slobodan Milosevic.

In that letter, according to the Spokesman, Mrs. Robinson had notified President Milosevic of her intention to increase the number of human rights officers in Kosovo. She stressed the importance for the United Nations and the Commission on Human Rights of having independent and objective information on the human rights situation in Kosovo. She repeated her request for approval to open a human rights office in Pristina. She said she believed that there was strong backing from the international community for such an office.

Mr. Eckhard said Mrs. Robinson had also sent another letter to Croatian President Franjo Tudjman regarding the treatment of the minority Serb population in that country. She indicated her wish to travel to the Kosovo region in the coming months.

Colombia was the forty-fifth State to pay its regular budget dues for 1998 in full, the Spokesman also announced. It paid over $1 million.

The Spokesman informed correspondents about a press release from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. As had been mentioned before, Dragoljub Kunarac had pleaded guilty to one of the counts against him, namely, rape. He would appear before the Tribunal at 3 p.m. tomorrow instead of 8 a.m. as earlier reported. A note on that was available at the Spokesman's Office.

The Spokesman also announced that his office had received a media advisory from the World Food Programme (WFP). The head of the WFP office in the city of Herat (Afghanistan), Daniella Owen, would be available for interviews Monday and Tuesday next week. She was one of two United Nations women working in western Afghanistan.

Mr. Eckhard said the Chairperson of the forty-second session of the Commission on the Status of Women, Patricia Flor, and the Chairperson of the open-ended working group on the elaboration of a draft optional protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, Aloisia Woergether (Austria), would brief correspondents at 11:15 a.m. on the conclusions of the Commission, which began meeting at Headquarters on 2 March.

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The Spokesman said he expected the Secretary-General to introduce the newly appointed Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, Kensaku Hogen, to correspondents at tomorrow's noon briefing.

Asked when the Secretary-General was expected at Headquarters today, Mr. Eckhard said he was on the 11:30 a.m. shuttle from Washington, D.C., and that he would probably get back here at 12:30 p.m.

Asked if there was anything happening on Kosovo in the United Nations, the Spokesman said there was none. He recalled that he was asked yesterday if Kosovo was on the Secretary-General's agenda for Washington, and he had said it was not, but that it could come up. "And as you could see, it did come up. There is a lot of international interest in this issue. To my knowledge there, is nothing going on in the house on the subject", he added. He also pointed out that there would be a regular monitoring of the developments there through the Department of Political Affairs and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

A correspondent mentioned a media report about the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Klaus Topfer, who was said to be receiving compensation from the German Government in addition to his UNEP salary. The correspondent wanted to know if such an action conformed with United Nations policy. Mr. Eckhard said it was a matter between the German Government and Mr. Topfer. He added, however, that United Nations policy prohibited employees from receiving any gift or instructions from a Member State.

The correspondent wanted to know if it would be considered a gift if it was indeed true that Mr. Topfer was being compensated by the German Government. Mr. Eckhard said "that sounds like a gift to me".

Asked how the two United Nations departments he had earlier mentioned had been monitoring the situation in Kosovo, the Spokesman said they did it as a matter of routine. He also added the Department of Peacekeeping Operations to the list, reminding the correspondent of the Secretary-General's press conference in Washington, D.C., during which he disclosed that he was looking into the mandate of the United Nations Preventive Deployment Force in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (UNPREDEP). The Security Council had decided to shut down that Force by mid-August. The Secretary-General said he would be submitting to the Council a recommendation on that. The Secretary- General felt that there would probably no longer be support for the closure of that mission in mid-August.

Asked when the Secretary-General would be submitting that report, Mr. Eckhard said the Secretary-General did not say.

Another correspondent wanted to know if there were plans to remove United Nations troops from Angola in view of the current agreement.

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Mr. Eckhard said the United Nations had already begun a withdrawal of the military side of the mission.

On the appointment of the Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Iraq, Prakash Shah of India, a correspondent asked if that was not in violation of the United Nations Charter in view of India's refusal to sign all disarmament measures. Mr. Eckhard said Mr. Shah would serve as a political link between the Secretary-General and the Government of Iraq. Mr. Shah was a distinguished diplomat and that the Secretary-General had complete confidence in him.

Asked what the Secretary-General and United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had discussed during yesterday's dinner in Washington, the Spokesman said he had not received anything on that from the Senior Associate Spokesman, Juan Carlos Brandt. "If you like, you can ask him when he comes in", he added.

A correspondent wanted to know if Under-Secretary-General Hogen, who would be introduced tomorrow at the noon briefing, would be replacing Assistant-Secretary-General for Public Information Samir Sanbar; Mr. Eckhard said yes. He said there was also the issue of broadening and changing the concept of the work of the Office of Communications and Public Information. The report of the task force on the Department of Public Information (DPI) was still on the table, and it was expected that Mr. Hogen would pick it up, as well as the considerable internal discussions that had been conducted at the staff level in response to that report and recommendations for change. He would have that rich menu of ideas on how to change and improve the work of hisi Office along the lines recommended by the task force.

Asked if Mr. Hogen had skills in the communications and media industry, Mr. Eckhard said the new Under-Secretary-General was in charge of information for the Foreign Ministry of Japan, for the Japanese Embassy in Washington, D.C., and in a number of other diplomatic posts that he had held. The Spokesman said Mr. Hogen was fluent in English, and the Secretary-General felt that he had the background necessary to do the job.

A correspondent wanted more clarification on the monitoring role of United Nations departments in Kosovo. The Spokesman said it was not on the basis of having observers inside Kosovo province. He said he would see what information was available on the matter.

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