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 General Assembly President.)

Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, began today's noon briefing by announcing that Sergio Vieira de Mello, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, would attend. A review of the Organization's presence in Afghanistan had just been completed and Mr. Vieira de Mello had reported to the Security Council yesterday. He would give correspondents a sense of the outcome of those deliberations. (Coverage of Mr. Vieira de Mello's briefing is issued separately.)

Mr. Eckhard said that it was almost 100 degrees fahrenheit in New York City today and scientific reports quoted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said that 1998 was shaping up as the hottest year on record. The Programme was urging policy-makers today to take immediate action to limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

He quoted Klaus Töpfer, Executive Director of UNEP, as saying, "Record warming and severe summer heat waves in the United States, India, China and elsewhere are a wake-up call. We cannot afford to wait several years for the Kyoto Protocol to enter into force before making significant emission cuts." A UNEP press release with further details was on the racks.

The Secretary-General was on the last leg of his Latin American trip, the Spokesman said. He was in Mexico City, where he had met this morning with President Ernesto Zedillo and with Foreign Minister Rosario Green, a former colleague from the United Nations Secretariat. The Secretary-General would be meeting with the Mayor of Mexico City and lunching with a group of Mexican business leaders. He would meet with heads of United Nations agencies and finally attend a dinner in his honour hosted by President Zedillo.

There had been no Security Council meeting today, Mr. Eckhard said. However, there would be two troop contributors' meetings this afternoon, one for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and the other for the United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG). Both would be in Conference Room 7 at 3 p.m. and 4 p.m., respectively. Tomorrow, the Security Council was expected to take up both those peacekeeping missions, although no formal action was expected on either of them until next week.

On Tajikistan, the Spokesman said that a second statement had been issued late yesterday afternoon on the killing of the four members of the United Nations Mission of Observers in Tajikistan (UNMOT). The Secretary- General had condemned the cold-blooded murder and called on the Government of

Tajikistan and the opposition to make every effort to bring to justice those responsible for the "heinous act".

The Government of Tajikistan, he added, had set up a special commission headed by the military prosecutor general to conduct an investigation, and it had begun its work today. The Mission had its own investigation already under way. Available to correspondents was a press release issued in Geneva in which the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, had expressed her outrage at the killing of the four UNMOT staff.

Mr. Eckhard said it was understood that the Secretary-General's high- level panel on Algeria had just landed in Algiers. The team, led by former Portuguese President Mario Soares, would stay in Algeria for about two weeks to gather information and present a report to the Secretary-General on the situation in that country.

The Spokesman said that Germany would become the seventeenth country to sign a memorandum of understanding on the standby arrangements for United Nations peacekeeping operations. That would take place tomorrow at 4:15 p.m. The Acting Permanent Representative of Germany would sign for his country, and Bernard Miyet, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, would sign for the United Nations. The standby arrangements had been designed to speed up the deployment of peacekeeping operations approved by the Security Council.

Senegal had ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention, Mr. Eckhard said. That brought to 113 the total number of parties to that Convention, which had entered into force last April. Tonga had acceded to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, bringing to 175 the number of parties to that Framework Convention.

Concluding the briefing, he said that Nurul Islam, Chairman of the United Nations Committee for Development Planning, would brief correspondents on a proposal for a world financial organization and on other recommendations from that Committee. That would be at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow in room S-226 and would be followed at 11:15 a.m. by Danny Glover, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Goodwill Ambassador. He would talk about anti- poverty projects in Namibia and South Africa. A UNDP press release with further details was available.

A correspondent asked which countries had already signed the standby arrangements. Could the Spokesman name some of them? Mr. Eckhard said his Office would give her the complete list after the briefing.

Another correspondent asked whether there had been anything at all from the UNMOT investigation. The Spokesman replied that he had nothing to add to the details of the oral report that he had given yesterday.

Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 22 July 1998

Alex Taukatch, spokesman for General Assembly President Hennadiy Udovenko, said that the President was back at Headquarters. He had returned to New York over the weekend from Kiev, where he had been kept busy fulfilling his duties as the newly elected chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament's Committee on Human Rights.

Mr. Taukatch said that the President had joined his voice in condemning the despicable murders of the four United Nations mission members in Tajikistan. A statement would be made available after the briefing. (See Press Release GA/SM/49.)

On the President's activities this morning, he said Mr. Udovenko had met with the President of the Economic and Social Council, Juan Somavia of Chile, who had informed him about the work of the Council's 1998 substantive session, currently under way at Headquarters.

Special attention had been devoted to the process of revitalizing the Council's work in light of General Assembly resolutions on United Nations reform, the spokesman went on to say. Mr. Udovenko had invited the Council President to attend one of the informal Assembly meetings in order to brief the membership on Council activities aimed at implementing the relevant paragraphs of United Nations reform resolutions.

Mr. Taukatch reminded correspondents that by resolution 52/12 B on renewing the United Nations, the General Assembly had requested the Economic and Social Council to consider at its 1998 organizational and substantive sessions the recommendations of the Secretary-General related to the reform of United Nations subsidiary bodies and those relating to the Council's organization and methods of work.

He said the General Assembly President was at that moment presiding over the fiftieth meeting of the open-ended working group on the question of equitable representation in and increase of Security Council membership. The President had praised the delegates for their arduous work and for their endurance and perseverance despite the scorching summer heat. He had paid special tribute to the work done by the Co-Vice-Chairmen of the working group, the Ambassadors of Finland and Thailand, in his absence.

The meeting had begun the second round of its consideration of the report of the working group, the spokesman said.

Mr. Taukatch reminded correspondents that the fifty-third session of the General Assembly was around the corner, but that this time the session would begin earlier than usual. The current session was scheduled to end on 8 September and the fifty-third session would begin on 9 September. That was a change from the regular practice in accordance with the recent General Assembly resolution. The International Day of Peace, which had traditionally

Daily Press Briefing - 4 - 22 July 1998

been observed on the third Tuesday of September, would this time be marked on Wednesday, 9 September, the opening day of the session.

Prior to Mr. Vieira de Mello's presentation on Afghanistan, Mr. Eckhard said he had a statement on the same subject, attributable to the Spokesman:

"The Secretary-General was shocked to learn of the death of two humanitarian workers and deeply disturbed to learn of the expulsion of non- governmental organizations (NGOs) and other obstacles being placed in the way of humanitarian work in Afghanistan. He appeals to all authorities in Afghanistan, including the Northern Alliance, to take energetic measures to ensure adequate security for humanitarian workers. He also appeals to the Taliban to reconsider their decision to relocate NGOs to a single location in Kabul and strongly supports the measures agreed upon in the humanitarian inter-agency meeting convened in New York on Tuesday, 21 July." (See Press Release SG/SM/6650-AFG/80.)

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