DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

Press Briefing

DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

The following is a near verbatim transcript of today's noon briefing by the Spokesman for the Secretary-General, Fred Eckhard:

Good afternoon.

**Secretary-General in Washington, D.C.:

The Secretary-General leaves tomorrow at midday for Washington, D.C., where he will deliver a lecture on the future of peacekeeping at Georgetown University in the evening. We hope to have embargoed copies of that speech for you by late today.

Shortly after his arrival, he and Mrs. Annan will have lunch with Ambassador Rolf Ekeus, Sweden's Ambassador to Washington and the former Executive Chairman of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM). After that, he begins meetings with the congressional leadership with a session with Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott.

On Wednesday, he continues those meetings with the new Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert; the House Minority Leader, Richard Gephart; and the Senate Minority Leader, Tom Daschle.

He will have a private lunch with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. In the afternoon, he will meet with National Security Adviser Sandy Berger and then in the evening he will attend a State Dinner at the White House for Ghanaian President Jerry Rawlings.

He will return to New York on an early morning shuttle on Thursday.

**Security Council:

The Security Council has a long day today. They started shortly before 10 a.m. for consultations on procedural matters. A draft presidential statement on Tajikistan was also introduced at this session. It is expected to be adopted tomorrow.

At 10:45 a.m., they began an open meeting on the protection of civilians in armed conflict. This is a continuation of the open meeting held on 12 February, and it allows for non-Council members to share their views on the subject.

Then, at 4 p.m. today, there will be two consecutive Arria formula meetings on Angola. The first will be with the delegation headed by General Higino Carneiro, Angolan Vice-Minister for Territorial Administration. The

second meeting will be with a Zambian delegation led by Foreign Minister Keli Walubita.

**New Government in Guinea-Bissau:

The Secretary-General welcomes the swearing in, on 20 February, of a government of national unity in Guinea-Bissau, in accordance with the Abuja Agreement of 1 November 1998. The Secretary-General sees this development as an encouraging step towards restoring stability and peace in Guinea-Bissau.

**United Nations Preventive Deployment Force:

There will be closed consultations among members of the Security Council and troop contributors on the United Nations Preventive Deployment Force in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia today at 3:30 p.m. in the Trusteeship Council Chamber.

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Fernando Martin Valenzuela Marzo, is here for consultations. He will attend the troop- contributors meeting, as well as Security Council consultations, tomorrow.

The Secretary-General has recommended a six-month extension of the mandate of the United Nations peacekeeping mission.

**Iraq Panels to Begin Work:

Three panels on Iraq, which the Security Council set up in late January, are beginning their work. The Panel on Disarmament and Current and Future Ongoing Monitoring and Verification (which is Panel 1) will meet tomorrow at 10 a.m., in Conference Room 7, first to organize its work and then to begin substantive work. It is scheduled to continue until 27 February.

The Panel on Humanitarian Issues (Panel 2) held an organizational session last Friday. It will meet next on 1 and 2 March to undertake substantive work. The Panel on Prisoners of War and Kuwaiti Property (Panel 3) held an organizational session last Thursday. It will meet next on 3 and 4 March, also to undertake substantive work.

Any questions on the substantive work of the Panels should be directed to their Chairman, Ambassador Celso Luis Amorim of Brazil.

**Judge MacDonald Concerned over Kosovo Negotiations:

Judge Gabrielle MacDonald, President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, talked to the press in The Hague this morning. She expressed her concern about reports she has received from Rambouillet saying that explicit reference to the Tribunal had been cut out of the language of the text of a possible agreement on Kosovo.

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She had heard that a paragraph, which stated that Tribunal investigators should have complete, unimpeded, and unfettered access, has been amended so as to take out the explicit reference to the investigators. She said that this was "shortsighted and dangerous". She recalled that a peace deal would not curtail the obligations that the parties have regarding the Tribunal, and that reference to the Tribunal should be explicit in any agreement.

She also said that she would be writing to members of the Contact Group to notify them of her concerns.

**Special Envoy for Afghanistan:

The Secretary-Genera's Special Envoy for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, arrived in Islamabad, Pakistan, the second stop of his current mission to the region. While in Islamabad, he is expected to meet with Pakistani officials, including the foreign minister, as well as a Taliban delegation from Kandahar in Afghanistan.

From Pakistan, he is expected to proceed to Tehran and then to Moscow. Exact dates of the remainder of his programme are not yet available.

**Secretary-General Addresses Decolonization Committee:

The Secretary-General this morning opened this year's session of the Decolonization Committee.

He encouraged the administering Powers to work closely with the Committee and especially with the people of the remaining Non-Self-Governing Territories to help them realize, in the words of the Charter, a "full measure of self-government".

We have copies of the speech available in my office.

**Report on Elimination of Violence against Women:

You will find in the racks today the report of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) on the elimination of violence against women. This report is issued in preparation for the forty-fourth session of the Commission on the Status of Women, which is scheduled to take place from 1 to 12 March.

**International Criminal Court:

The Preparatory Commission for the International Criminal Court, which met in closed consultations for most of last week, held an open meeting this morning. The respective Chairmen of the Working Groups on the elements of crimes and on the rules of procedure and evidence reported on the results of the negotiations so far. We expect a press release on this subject shortly.

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The Commission then went back into a closed meeting to hold consultations on the crime of aggression. Under its Statute, the Court will have jurisdiction over the crime of aggression once a provision is adopted, setting out the conditions under which the Court can act in this regard.

The PrepCom is preparing recommendations on the issue to the Assembly of States parties for adoption.

**Indictee Surrenders to Rwanda Tribunal:

We have a press release from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda saying that an indictee has surrendered to the Tribunal in South Africa and has been transferred to Arusha. Pick up a copy of that in my office if you are interested.

**Commission on Sustainable Development:

The Commission on Sustainable Development today starts two weeks of preparatory negotiations for its April session.

This week, the talks will focus on tourism and consumption patterns. Next week, on ocean issues and small islands. We have two press releases on the racks today from them.

**Rwanda Tribunal Judges:

In Arusha today, three of the five newly elected judges of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda were sworn in. They will start their duties immediately, and we have a press release upstairs with their names.

**Payments to United Nations:

Two more Member States have paid their dues in full. India came through with its contribution of over $3.1 million, and Uganda with just over $41,000, making forty-four States paid in full for 1999.

**UNDP/Dun and Bradstreet News Conference:

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Dun and Bradstreet, a leading provider of business credit, marketing and purchasing information, will hold a news conference tomorrow at the Crowne Plaza Hotel at 10:30 a.m. to announce the launch of a new product classification system that will improve electronic commerce between rich and poor countries.

**UNCTAD Report on Sea Trade:

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has just published its annual Review of Maritime Transport.

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The Review shows that the growth rate of seaborne trade slowed in 1998 to 2.2 per cent, compared with 4.1 per cent in previous years.

We have a press release from UNCTAD with more details.

**World Chronicle Television:

Today World Chronicle Television will feature Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). You can see that on in-house channels 6 or 38 at 2:30 p.m.

Question-and-Answer Session:

Question: Regarding the extradition of those three officers of the Yugoslav army, for which the deadline was 12 February, did Judge MacDonald communicate in any way with the Security Council?

Spokesman: Not to my knowledge, but let us do follow-up on that and give you whatever information we might have. But I don't believe so.

Question: Would Ambassador Brahimi be discussing the disappearance of Osama bin Laden with the Taliban? Was that part of his agenda?

Spokesman: I don't believe it is, no.

Question: On the letter that Angolan President dos Santos sent to the Secretary-General -- any comment on that?

Spokesman: No. That is now up to the Security Council.

Question: On the Libya letter, any official response? Have there been the clarifications that were asked for verbally and informally?

Spokesman: We did receive over the weekend a letter from the equivalent of the foreign minister of Libya responding to the Secretary-General's letter. There were still some elements on which he was requesting clarification. We are studying that letter, and the Secretary-General will be reporting to the Security Council, which is scheduled to review the sanctions on Libya on Friday of this week.

Question: What is the nature of the trip of Ambassador Brahimi to Tehran?

Spokesman: It is both political and humanitarian. His basic responsibility is political. Our agenda with Afghanistan has a very large humanitarian component. We are trying to resolve the remaining issues between us and the Taliban before we allow our humanitarian workers back into the country. Ambassador Brahimi is also looking at the larger picture of a peaceful settlement in Afghanistan involving all the parties.

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Question: On Sierra Leone, do we know which countries are providing arms?

Spokesman: I don't believe we have that kind of detailed information.

Question: Does the resolution request that Sierra Leone mention the countries?

Spokesman: Of course we can always ask. That kind of information we normally don't have. We are still not even in Sierra Leone, we are operating in Conakry, Guinea, so our information is not direct.

Thanks very much.

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