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 the Six-Plus-Two United Nations meeting on Afghanistan to be hosted by the Secretary-General this afternoon was occurring in the midst of the deadliest rocket attacks in years on the city of Kabul. Local United Nations staff in Kabul were supporting ongoing rescue activities, such as providing plastic sheeting and other emergency relief items to affected families in close collaboration with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

There still had been no date set for the humanitarian needs assessment mission to Bamiyan, the Spokesman said. Repeated requests for landing in Bamiyan had not been granted by the Taliban. The United Nations meeting on Afghanistan, the so-called Six-Plus-Two meeting, was designed to exchange views on recent developments in Afghanistan and tensions in the region. It would take place in Conference Room 9 from 4:30 to 5:45 p.m. today.

Mr. Eckhard said the Secretary-General had addressed the General Assembly this morning just prior to the opening of the Assembly's general debate. The Secretary-General had begun by reviewing achievements of the reform effort, but he had noted that the single greatest impediment to good performance was the "financial straight-jacket in which we are obliged to operate." The Secretary-General had called on those Member States that had fallen seriously behind in their contributions to follow the good example set by others.

The Secretary-General had further said that in the two years leading up to the millennium, the Assembly should focus on identifying a select few of the world's most pressing problems and outline an achievable programme for dealing with them, Mr. Eckhard continued. The Secretary-General had welcomed the fruitful cooperation between the United Nations and civil society, but he warned against the emergence of "uncivil" society, which was responsible for the terrorism that had taken so many lives recently, including those of United Nations personnel.

The Secretary-General had then called attention to the inability of the international community to respond adequately to the conflicts in Afghanistan and Kosovo, the Spokesman said. He had mentioned also the crumbling peace process in Angola and the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which involved forces of at least five other African countries. In sum, the Secretary-General had said he was making no apologies for ending on such a bleak note, stressing that with a concerted and united effort, "there is almost nothing we could not achieve".

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Presently, Mr. Eckhard then said, President Nelson Mandela of South Africa was speaking to the Assembly. The address was expected to be Mr. Mandela's last to the Assembly, as he had decided not to run for another term as President. Mr. Mandela had first addressed the Assembly as leader of the African National Congress in 1991. Then, as now, he had received a standing ovation.

The Prime Minister of Iraq, Tarik Aziz, would arrive in New York for a visit lasting several days starting 26 September, Mr. Eckhard announced. During that time, Mr. Aziz was expected to meet with the Secretary-General and with members of the Security Council. The Secretary-General had been in touch with Iraqi authorities since Iraq had ceased cooperating with United Nations weapons inspectors in early August, urging them to again reverse their course and return to full compliance with Security Council resolutions.

Word had come from Georgia that on Saturday, a handmade explosive device had been thrown into the compound of the Sukhumi headquarters of the United Nations Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG), Mr. Eckhard said. The explosion had caused minor damage to two United Nations vehicles. There were no casualties but it was the fourth incident of that nature at the compound. While the general situation in the Sukhumi area was calm, the United Nations mission reported a continuing rise in tension in the Gali and Zugdidi areas.

The Secretary-General's progress report on the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH) was on the racks today, the Spokesman announced. The United Nations International Police Task Force (IPTF) continued the process of changing its focus from general monitoring to more specialized activities in police restructuring, training, monitoring and investigations into human rights abuses by the local police. The United Nations mission was now facilitating the introduction of a State-level border police for the country, which would replace the separate entity-based police forces now in place.

The Secretary-General said in his report, Mr. Eckhard emphasized, that such a force would further strengthen Bosnia and Herzegovina as a State, at the expense of the entities. The current mandate of UNMIBH had been extended to 21 June 1999.

Further on Iraq, Mr. Eckhard said, the United Nations Special Commission had invited 14 experts from six countries for a technical meeting to assess the findings of three laboratories that had tested three different samples taken from destroyed Iraqi missile warheads. That meeting would be held on Thursday of this week and was expected to continue into Friday.

The General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had opened today in Vienna, Mr. Eckhard said. In a message to the Conference, the Secretary-General had underscored the fact that the current session was taking place against a most regrettable set-back in the global effort to

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prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. "The genie cannot be put back into the bottle", the Secretary-General had said, calling for a renewed focus on the driving forces behind the acquisition of nuclear weapons.

"We must also reaffirm our course of action", the Spokesman continued in the Secretary-General's words. "No nuclear tests, no new weaponization or deployment of nuclear weapons; rather, a working system of global and regional security, and nuclear disarmament at the earliest possible date". Ministers and high-level representatives were attending the five-day conference, and a press release on the event was available in room S-378, along with the full text of the Secretary-General's message.

Reports had already circulated that the Secretary-General had been awarded the Seoul Peace Prize, Mr. Eckhard said, in recognition of his contribution to a more peaceful world. The prize was awarded every two years and was attached to an honorarium of $200,000. The Secretary-General had decided to give the money to the United Nations Trust Fund for Preventive Action. That Fund had financed, for example, the Secretary-General's Expert Panel on Algeria. The Award was established to commemorate the success of the 1988 twenty-fourth Olympic games in Seoul.

In room S-378, there was a press release from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) welcoming the ratification of the anti-landmine convention, the Spokesman said. That was issued today in Geneva. The latest situation reports on the floods in China and Bangladesh were also available after being issued over the weekend. Those were also available on the ReliefWeb, a website on humanitarian and natural disasters, maintained by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). That address was www.reliefweb.int.

Bulgaria on Friday had become the fifty-third State to sign the Kyoto protocol, Mr. Eckhard said. Today, Lithuania had became the fifty-fourth State to sign that Convention. At the same time, Zambia had become the ninety-eighth Member State to pay its contribution to the United Nations regular budget in full with a check for just over $31,000.

Forthcoming press conferences included one tomorrow at 10 a.m. by the President of Sri Lanka and at 11 a.m. by the President of Burundi, Mr. Eckhard said. At 4 p.m., the President of Burkina Faso would hold a press conference.

A number of correspondents then asked questions about the heads of State who were delivering addresses at the opening of the general debate of the General Assembly. Would President Mandela of South Africa speak with the press? He was not planning on it, Mr. Eckhard answered.

How would the Spokesman describe the historical standing ovation for President Bill Clinton of the United States inside the General Assembly? Mr. Eckhard said he had noticed it but would not try to describe it. Had

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Mr. Mandela gotten a standing ovation in 1994 as well as in 1991? Mr. Eckhard said he would check. Were standing ovations standard or rare? They were not standard by any means but the videotapes would have to be consulted to see what the statistics were. Had Mr. Clinton ever received a standing ovation before? He would check, Mr. Eckhard said.

A journalist asked about the experts convening to discuss the results of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) tests conducted on missile fragments from Iraq. Were the 14 experts meeting at Headquarters on Thursday part of the existing technical committees or were they new experts being brought in? Mr. Eckhard said that on those specific details, the Spokesman for the United Nations Special Commission, Ewen Buchanan, could be consulted.

In response to questions, Mr. Eckhard also answered that the Secretary- General would meet with the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq on 28 September and that he would check on whether Mr. Aziz was on the Security Council programme. The High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, who had just returned from China and who was presently in New York, had agreed to give a press conference on Wednesday at 2:45 p.m. in room S-226.

A journalist asked for a summary of United Nations activities related to the terrorism that had been the focus of Mr. Clinton's speech. "That would take an encyclopedia", Mr. Eckhard responded, adding that a hand-out had been prepared a week or two ago on United Nations activities in relation to terrorism. "There are about 11 separate conventions on that", Mr. Eckhard summarized and the journalist said the hand-out would be fine.

One journalist noted the Secretary-General's statement that he would not apologize for the state of affairs he had described. "Should the United Nations not provide an analysis? Should it continue to look at global troubles as isolated cases? Would an analysis not be better than just to say we should all work together?"

"It was the Secretary-General's decision, for this speech, to not get into an analysis of every trouble spot but merely to mention them and then to sound a moral high point and say let us work together. But every day that the Security Council meets, the Secretariat was there, providing information and analysis. That is part of our ongoing job", Mr. Eckhard said.

"Is that to be taken as the Secretary-General seeing no relationship globally, that all are separate trouble spots?" Not necessarily, Mr. Eckhard said. A look at the Secretary-General's major speeches showed references to the post-cold-war adjustments going on that had not yet formed a new set of strategic security arrangements. If one were looking for one major theme, that would be it, along with the tendency of human beings to "slug it out, not talk it out", which would not be changing in the short term.

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A number of correspondents asked about President Clinton's absence of mention regarding the United States debt to the United Nations. Under article 19 of the United Nations Charter, would the United States lose its right to vote in the Security Council when it lost the right to vote in the Assembly for nonpayment of arrears?

No, Mr. Eckhard answered, article 19 would apply only to the General Assembly. "And I might mention that it is not an action that Member States would take to remove the right to vote from the United States. It is an automatic result of a calculation made at the end of the year of the arrears, and all Member States who are more than two years behind by the calculation automatically lose their vote." Action would have to be taken by the Assembly to grant an exception, Mr. Eckhard added. "That is not to suggest it would happen, but that is possible."

Asked how much the United States would be in arrears by 31 December, Mr. Eckhard said it could not be estimated since the United States fiscal year began 1 October and it would have to be seen how much had been appropriated for that period, which would then be paid against the oldest outstanding arrears. "We don't know enough now to say", Mr. Eckhard said.

"Assuming nothing was paid in October, how much would be two years old as of 1 December?" the correspondent pursued. "All we have said is that the United States would have to pay more between 1 October and 31 December of this year than they paid last year and the year before, in order to avoid losing the vote".

Was the Secretary-General disappointed that President Clinton had not said more about the arrears? They had discussed that subject in the meeting before the President spoke, Mr. Eckhard said. "What else had they discussed?" another correspondent asked. "There was some talk the Secretary-General would bring up the United States scandal from the perspective of offering compassion or understanding. Did that topic come up at all?"

"No, it did not", Mr. Eckhard answered, adding that the Secretary- General and President Clinton had discussed Iraq and that the President had briefed the Secretary-General on the Middle East peace efforts and prospects for a breakthrough. The Secretary-General had briefed the President on United Nations efforts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola and Afghanistan. Those were the main issues touched upon in their fifteen minute meeting.

Pressed on the matter of what had been said between President Clinton and the Secretary-General on the United States arrears, Mr. Eckhard said he was not at liberty to say what had been discussed. "You will have to ask the Americans that", Mr. Eckhard repeated. "But they did talk about the prospects of payment", he added. In response to other questions, Mr. Eckhard said he did not believe the Secretary-General had heard anything new on the issue during his discussion with Mr. Clinton and that no programme had been set for

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the Secretary-General in Washington, which meant it was not known whether the two men would meet there.

An editorial in The New York Times today by Jesse Helms, Chairman of the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had cited some figures on the United States arrears, a correspondent pointed out. Did those figures correspond with what the United Nations had, and, if not, then how did they match up?

Mr. Eckhard said Mr. Helms was talking about figures in the United States legislation, not the total figure. The United Nations said the United States arrears was about one and one-half billion dollars, and the legislation that the Senator referred to was about $900 million. That $900 would not all go to the United Nations regular budget but would go to some specialized agencies. So the amount in the legislation that would come to the United Nations proper, against that $1.5 billion, was in the area of $600 million.

Was the United States Congress ignoring the rest of the debt or saying it would not pay? a correspondent asked. Mr. Eckhard said he could not speak for the United States Congress but could only say those were the numbers in the pending United States legislation and the amount that the United States owed as a whole.

Another correspondent asked about a line in the United States legislation, quoted in the Helms article in The Times, which would forbid groups that accepted federal subsidies to use American tax dollars to lobby foreign governments to change their abortion laws. "In context of the United Nations, what is he referring to?"

"I can't go into that", Mr. Eckhard answered. "Our understanding is that the domestic issue of abortion has been attached to the funding legislation for the United Nations in the United States. That's a domestic, internal matter I cannot really comment on".

In their discussion of the Middle East process, another correspondent asked, had the Secretary-General and President Clinton talked about the possibility of a summit meeting in New York between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yassir Arafat? "I have no details on that", Mr. Eckhard answered.

A correspondent then asked what the Secretary-General's role would be in the Six-Plus-Two meeting on Afghanistan. The Secretary-General had convened the meeting, Mr. Eckhard said, and he would chair it for the first half hour or so, after which he would leave to attend other meetings. He would have an opening statement and there would be a photo opportunity inside the room at the beginning of the meeting. DPI would have a stand-up microphone in front of Conference Room 9 and UN Television would be there. Other correspondents and camera people were welcome to be there as well.

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It was a busy day for the Secretary-General, a correspondent said. But had the Secretary-General walked by any of the monitors airing the Clinton testimony? "To my knowledge, no", Mr. Eckhard answered. Another correspondent then asked whether it had been a policy matter to air the Clinton testimony at the United Nations or had that been an accident?

The monitors in the bullpen area were there as a service to journalists, who could decide what news they wanted to watch, Mr. Eckhard said. The monitors could be changed by anyone, and there was a difference of opinion among the journalists about whether the monitors should be on the in-house channel or on the other. There was a request by some journalists to turn that monitor back onto the in-house channel. That would have caused an uproar and the decision was to "let you slug it out among yourselves".

Jadranka Mihalic, Spokesman for General Assembly President Didier Opertti (Uruguay), said that today had been the busiest day of the fifty-third session. The President had held a series of bilateral meetings this morning, before the opening of the seventh plenary meeting. Then, after the statement of the Secretary-General introducing his annual report, the general debate began, as was the tradition, with a statement by Brazil, whose Foreign Minister spoke. He was followed by the President of the host country and then the Presidents of South Africa and Burkina Faso. Statements by the Presidents of Uruguay, Sri Lanka and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom would follow.

This afternoon, Ms. Mihalic said, the General Assembly would continue the general debate, with statements by: the Presidents of Latvia and Iran; the Prime Ministers of Papua New Guinea and Japan; and Foreign Ministers of Mexico, Argentina, Indonesia, Costa Rica, Norway, Cote d'Ivoire and Yemen.

Ms. Mihalic then said that, as announced on Friday, the plenary proceedings were available live on the Internet, and they were archived for later reference under the titles of both the meeting and the name of the country. Ms. Mihalic also brought attention to Note to Correspondents No. 5524, which concerned arrangements for the general debate of the fifty-third session.

Finally, Ms. Mihalic said an updated list of officers of the six Main Committees were available at the back of room S-226. There were also revised lists of speakers for today and the list for tomorrow.

One correspondent said copies of statements from speakers were slow to arrive and Mr. Eckhard explained that two interns were doing their best in gathering the statements. Mr. Eckhard then added that there had been a change in security. As of this morning, only resident correspondents would be able to use an entrance other than the visitors entrance. Those correspondents who were not resident or those who were carrying equipment could enter only through the visitors entrance, although that was probably only for today.

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