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, said at the beginning of today's press briefing that the Secretary-General had spoken by telephone this weekend to Prime Minister Bertie Ahern of Ireland and Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom to extend his warmest congratulations for the historic agreement on Northern Ireland reached over the weekend. He had also thanked United States President William Clinton for the instrumental role played by him and by United States Mediator George J. Mitchell.

The Security Council was not meeting today, Mr. Eckhard said. Tomorrow the Secretary-General would brief the Council on his trip to the Middle East, Moscow, Beijing and London. [He subsequently announced that this had been cancelled.] The Council would then take up Western Sahara on Wednesday. The next progress report by the Secretary-General on Western Sahara was likely to come out tomorrow. That report was on the Secretary-General's desk this morning. Tomorrow there would also be a meeting of troop contributors to the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO).

The Secretary-General would introduce his report on Africa in a formal meeting of the Security Council on Thursday, the Spokesman went on to say. Correspondents would be briefed on that subject on Wednesday, probably in the morning. Embargoed copies of the report -- which was being printed this afternoon -- would be made available as soon as they were ready.

"On Iraq, there is a virtual battery of reports", Mr. Eckhard said. The biannual report of the Executive Chairman of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) on the elimination of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was likely to go to the Council by the middle of the week, perhaps late Wednesday. The report of the Commissioner of the special group charged with inspections of presidential sites, Jayantha Dhanapala, would be submitted to UNSCOM this afternoon. Mr. Dhanapala had met with the Secretary-General this morning at 11 a.m., and the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Iraq, Prakash Shah, would be arriving at Headquarters in the afternoon. That second report might also be available Wednesday afternoon.

The report of the technical evaluation meeting on biological weapons had come out on the racks this morning, the Spokesman said. That report concluded that Iraq had not provided any new technical information of substance to support its full, final and complete disclosures (FFCD) submitted to a meeting held in Vienna in March. That FFCD document was judged to be incomplete and inadequate by the technical evaluation group. Iraq had recognized its need to improve its FFCD and promised to do so.

The progress report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Iraq was also out on the racks, the Spokesman continued. It had noted that the surveys by 15 IAEA experts of the eight presidential sites had revealed no

immediate indications of the presence of prohibited materials or equipment, or of the conduct of prohibited activities with respect to the mandate of the IAEA. The Agency's ongoing monitoring and verification activities carried out since October 1997 had not revealed indications of the existence in Iraq of prohibited equipment or materials or of the conduct of prohibited activities. The IAEA would, however, continue to exercise its right to investigate any aspect of Iraq's clandestine nuclear programme.

Mr. Eckhard said that by tomorrow it would be known when the report of oil experts on Iraq's capacity to produce and export oil was likely to be submitted to the Security Council. That was expected to happen sometime this week.

On Angola, Mr. Eckhard said that at the end of last week a ceremony marking the extension of State administration to Mussende had taken place. Mussende -- a diamond mining area -- was one of the strategic locales for the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), and was located near UNITA's Andulo headquarters. The normalization of administration to that area was another important step forward towards completion of the peace process. At the same time, in another positive step forward, an agreement had been reached between the Government of Angola and UNITA on the composition of UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi's security detachment, which would include 65 bodyguards. Agreement had also been reached on the types of weapons those bodyguards could use.

The Spokesman said that a report regarding forest fires in Brazil was available from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination Team in Brazil had now completed its mission in Roraima, the state affected by the fires. The total area burned was approximately 9,250 square kilometres, which represented more than half the total area of 17,000 square kilometres that had been affected. Thanks to rains, the situation was now under control. However, about 12,000 people had been affected, including 7,000 who were in a serious situation because of a lack of water and food.

Also available on the racks was a new in-depth evaluation by the Office of Internal Oversight Services on the United Nations International Drug Control Programme in Vienna, the Spokesman went on to say. Among the recommendations in the report was a call for comprehensive proposals for reducing significant elements of the global drug problem. Pino Arlacchi, the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Vienna and Executive Director of United Nations International Drug Control Programme, would be in New York this week and was scheduled to hold a press conference on Thursday at 2 p.m., Mr. Eckhard added.

Today at 3:30 p.m. the Secretary-General would meet with Robert Gelbard, the Special Representative of the President of the United States for the

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Implementation of the Bosnia Peace Agreement, Mr. Eckhard said. They were expected to focus their discussion on the issue of Kosovo. In that connection, there was also a letter on the racks today from the Secretary- General to the President of the Security Council. The Council had called on the Secretary-General to report on Kosovo every 30 days starting at the end of March. In the letter, the Secretary-General pointed out that the only United Nations personnel in Kosovo were involved in humanitarian assistance, and as a result he would base his reports to the Council on information and assessments from the Contact Group, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the European Union.

The Spokesman said that the Secretary-General was also meeting today with the Prime Minister of the German State of Saxony, Professor Kurt Biedenkopf. At the invitation of the President of the Economic and Social Council, Professor Biedenkopf would be giving a lecture on "The Significance of the Legal and Social Order for the Transformation Process towards a Market Economy" on Tuesday at 11 a.m. On Wednesday at 11 a.m., at the invitation of the Permanent Representative of Romania -- the current Chair of the Third International Conference on New and Restored Democracies -- Professor Biedenkopf would speak on "The Process of Transition and the Building of a Society Based on Democracy and Market Economy -- Experiences and Lessons Learned".

Timothy Wirth, the President of the United Nations Foundation -- set up to help administer the $1 billion donation made to the United Nations by Ted Turner -- would speak tomorrow at 5 p.m. in Conference Room 2 on "Global Challenges at the Turn of the Century", Mr. Eckhard said. "Presumably that will give you some idea of the Turner people's sense of priorities in allocation of these resources", he added.

At 6 p.m. tomorrow in the Public Lobby, correspondents were invited to the opening of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) exhibition "From Abu Simbel to Angkor", Mr. Eckhard continued. The exhibition covered more than four decades of international campaigns to restore and preserve World Heritage cultural sites and monuments in 33 countries. There would also be a reception with refreshments.

The World Chronicle television programme would feature Elizabeth Evatt, an expert from Australia who was a member of the Human Rights Committee, Mr. Eckhard said, adding that it would be shown today on in-house television channel 6 or 38 at 2:30 p.m.

A correspondent asked whether the substance of the Entebbe agreement between President Clinton and six African Heads of State -- which had been released as a Security Council document -- would be annexed to the Secretary- General's report on Africa. Mr. Eckhard said, "We will have to wait and see what that report says. I haven't seen it myself." Correspondents would have

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a chance to question the Secretary-General on it after he had briefed the Security Council on Thursday. The Spokesman could not comment on any links to the report until it had been released.

Asked whether or not the Secretary-General was going to take a decision on pulling out the United Nations Mission in the Congo, the Spokesman said the Secretary-General had not yet made that determination. He had on his desk today a report from the region, and he had sent a letter to the Government with a number of specific questions that he would like to see answered. Before he had heard back from the Government he would not make a final decision.

Had the Government provided clarifications they had been asked for? the same correspondent asked. Mr. Eckhard said that the Government had not yet responded to the letter sent by the Secretary-General.

Following the press briefing the Spokesman's Office announced that the Executive Committee on Peace and Security would be meeting this afternoon to take up Sierra Leone, Liberia and Western Sahara.

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