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, began today's noon briefing by saying that after receiving an honorary degree from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana, yesterday, the Secretary-General was now settling down for what he hoped would be a week of vacation in his native Ghana. The vacation would end next weekend, however, when he travelled to South Africa on Monday, 31 August, to attend the Twelfth Summit of the Countries of the Non-Aligned Movement.

The Spokesman said that the Secretary-General's programme would begin in Johannesburg on Tuesday, where he would meet with eminent South African personalities for a discussion of good governance and poverty eradication. He would visit representatives of the United Nations family in South Africa at UN House, where he would review progress on United Nations reform. He would also receive an honorary degree from Witwatersrand University, whose Chancellor was Justice Richard Goldstone, the first prosecutor of the International Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

On Wednesday and Thursday, he said, the Secretary-General would travel to Durban, South Africa, where he would attend the Non-Aligned Summit and where he would have the opportunity, "in the margins", to meet with a variety of leaders. He was specifically interested in discussing the situations in Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He would return to New York at the end of the week.

Mr. Eckhard drew attention to the Security Council briefing this morning by the Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Angola, Lakhdar Brahimi. Mr. Brahimi had travelled to Angola at the end of July, where he met with all participants in the peace process. He had also visited neighbouring countries before returning to New York last week. The Council had agreed to extend the deadline for the next report of the Secretary-General on the situation in Angola, from 31 August until after the Non-Aligned Summit in Durban, where the Secretary- General would discuss the Angolan situation with members of the Southern African Development Community. After the Angola briefing, the Council was briefed on the latest situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by the Under-Secretary- General for Political Affairs, Kieran Prendergast.

Following those two briefings, he said that the United Kingdom and the United States were expected to introduce a draft resolution on the trial of the suspects in the Lockerbie bombing case. The original resolution on that matter had stated that the trial had to be held either in the United Kingdom or in the United States. Both countries had now agreed that the trial could be held in the Netherlands, presided over by Scottish judges. The resolution would pave the way for the United Kingdom and the Netherlands to pass the necessary enabling legislation.

The Spokesman said that while the Secretary-General was in Lisbon, Portugal, in early August, he had met with Mario Soarez, the Chairman of the Secretary-General's Panel of Eminent Persons concerning the situation in Algeria. The Panel had concluded its visit to Algeria on 4 August and held had some meetings in Lisbon on 6 August. It was now finalizing its report for presentation to the Secretary-General, who had pledged to make it public. It had previously been announced that the report would be issued by the end of August; it was now due out in September.

Turning to the weekly update from the Office of the Iraq Programme, the Spokesman noted the availability of a one-page summary and highlights accompanying the report. There were no new oil contracts approved by the oil overseers during the past week. Thus, the number of oil contracts approved in the current 180-day phase remained at 52. There were 17 new applications for oil (industry) spare parts received by the Secretariat in the past week, bringing to 58 the total number of applications received. Since the first deliveries in March 1997, the oil-for-food programme had delivered more than 6.5 million tonnes of foodstuff to Iraq, and $330 million worth of medicine and health supplies.

The Spokesman said he had some details in response to a question at yesterday's briefing concerning the ElShifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum and a contract that was issued to them under the Iraqi oil-for-food programme. In December 1997, the United Nations had received a request for approval of a contract between the ElShifa Pharmaceuticals Industries Company of Khartoum and the Ministry of Agriculture of Iraq for the supply of 100,000 one-litre containers of a veterinary pharmaceutical known as shifazole 2.5 per cent.

He said that the contract, valued at $199,000, was approved in January of this year by the Security Council Committee established under resolution 661 (1990) to monitor the implementation of sanctions against Iraq, and a letter of approval for its import into Iraq was issued. At the request of the Mission of the Sudan, a six-month extension of that contract was issued on 7 July. The Spokesman did not know the reason for the delay, but it was not uncommon for the Committee to receive requests to extend the terms of those contracts. At this point, there was no record that those veterinary pharmaceuticals were ever received by Iraq. That particular pharmaceutical was used for the control of parasitic diseases in cows and horses.

In Tajikistan, the United Nations had temporarily relocated its staff, Mr. Eckhard said. The Secretary-General had authorized the partial relocation of so-called non-essential United Nations personnel from Tajikistan to Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The temporary relocation was precautionary and was not a suspension of United Nations activities in that country. The relocation began on 24 August and involved internationally recruited United Nations personnel, including 33 military observers from the United Nations Mission of Observers in Tajikistan (UNMOT). Thirty-eight military observers remained in Dushanbe. The situation would be reviewed in the light of developments there.

Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 25 August 1998

The Spokesman's Office had received a report from the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) that early this morning two Greek Cypriot fishing boats crossed the so-called "maritime security line", an extension of the island's buffer zone into the sea. The boats were two kilometres out at sea, off the eastern part of the island, when they were approached by Turkish patrol boats which fired approximately 10 warning shots. Four bullets hit the vessels, although there were no reports of casualties. The UNFICYP strongly protested the use of force by the Turkish military and said that "that could lead to tragic events". It also urged the Cypriot Government to do its utmost to discourage the crossings of the maritime security line by fishing and tourist boats.

In a "heads up" to correspondents, the Spokesman said that the Secretary- General's report on the United Nations Civilian Police Mission in Haiti (MIPONUH) was expected tomorrow. In other announcements, he said the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, would visit China from 7 to 15 September, where she hoped to begin a constructive dialogue with the Chinese Government and advance cooperation in the field of human rights. She would focus on such areas as the administration of justice, labour rights, women's rights and minority rights. Further details of her visit would be available once her programme was finalized.

A press release from the International Tribunal on the Former Yugoslavia said that an accused, Dragoljub Kunarac, would make a further appearance on Friday to enter a plea to new charges brought against him by the prosecutor. He was accused of personal involvement in sexual assaults and rape of Muslim women in Bosnia. Further details were elaborated in a press release in the Spokesman's Office. Also available was a note from the Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention announcing the visit to the Republic of Korea by the Executive Director of the United Nations International Drug Control Programme, Pino Arlacchi, from 24 to 26 August. Mr. Arlacchi was attending, among other functions, the twelfth International Congress on Criminology.

A summary of today's briefing in Geneva by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was also available in his Office, Mr. Eckhard said. In it, the UNHCR reported a continuing stream of refugees from the three-week old war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The UNHCR condemned the continuing violence in Kosovo. It also appealed to the international community for both political and financial support, as it moved to expand its assistance operations with additional staff and required aid, following the visit to the region by the Assistant High Commissioner for Refugees, Soren Jessen-Petersen.

Also available in the Spokesman's Office was a statement by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), which was issued to reporters in Geneva today, he said. It contained a brief on the agency's activities in Kosovo, as well as an update on its programmes in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The UNICEF, which assisted some 4.6 million people in that country,

Daily Press Briefing - 4 - 25 August 1998

including half a million children under the age of five, had cited an improvement of the situation in accessible areas, with the incidence of malnourished children apparently declining. The hand-out included additional details.

The Spokesman announced that Paraguay this morning signed the Kyoto Protocol to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, bringing to 50 the number of signatories to that Protocol.

A correspondent asked if there had been any response from the Libyan Government to the letter conveyed by the Secretary-General concerning acceptance by the United Kingdom and the United States to hold the trial of the Lockerbie bombing suspects in the Netherlands. Mr. Eckhard said that, to his knowledge, the Council had not yet received a reply from Libya.

In response to another question, the Spokesman said there was nothing new on the investigation of the deaths of four team members of UNMOT.

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