In progress at UNHQ

DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

10 October 2000



Press Briefing


DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

20001010

The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today's noon briefing by Stephane Dujarric, Associate Spokesman for the Secretary-General, and Susan Markham, Spokeswoman for the President of the General Assembly.

Briefing by Associate Spokesman for Secretary-General

Good Afternoon.

**Middle East

We will start, obviously, with the Middle East and the Secretary-General's talks in Gaza and in Israel today. Earlier today in Gaza, the Secretary-General held his second meeting with Chairman Arafat. You will recall that he met with him late last night as well. The Secretary-General also met with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov in Gaza. They met privately for about twenty minutes, and then they were joined for a short while by Chairman Arafat for a trilateral meeting.

Following that encounter, the Secretary-General and his party drove to Jerusalem, where they had lunch with US Ambassador Martin Indyk before meeting with Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barak. During the meeting with the Prime Minister, the Secretary-General re-emphasized -– as he had done to Chairman Arafat -- the threat that continued violence in Israel and the occupied territories could present to the region as a whole. The two also discussed the issue of the three Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah on Saturday in Southern Lebanon.

In a press conference held jointly with the Prime Minister following that meeting, the Secretary-General reiterated his call for civilians on both sides to work together to calm the situation. The Secretary-General said the window of opportunity to bring down the violence would not remain open forever. In closing this short press encounter, the Secretary-General told journalists: ”I am hopeful, I am optimistic that with goodwill on all sides, we can do it. Otherwise, I wouldn't have come.”

The Secretary-General then met with the Israeli President Moshe Katsav to brief him on his ongoing efforts, and the Secretary-General is now about to or is meeting, as we speak, for a second time with the Russian Foreign Minister in Jerusalem.

As for the rest of the Secretary-General’s programme, we will have to wait and see how the day develops to get an idea of where we go from here.

Also relating to the situation in the Middle East, we have just heard from Geneva that a quorum has been reached by the Special Commission on Human Rights to meet to discuss the ongoing situation in the Middle East. The Bureau of the Commission will meet tomorrow to decide on exact dates for the Commission to meet as a whole.

Daily Press Briefing - 2 - 10 October 2000

**Human Rights

Also relating to human rights, the Commission on Human Rights announced earlier today in Geneva that Giorgio Giacomelli, the Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, will be travelling to the region from 11 October, which is tomorrow, until 15 October to report on the situation there.

And we have a full press release from the Human Rights Office available upstairs.

**Sierra Leone Mission

Concerning the on-going mission by the Security Council to Sierra Leone -- as you will recall we told you yesterday, today the plan was to split into two groups -- one visited Kenema and Daru, in the east, and the other visiting Port Loko and Mile 91 in the west.

We just heard from the group, led by UK Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock, of six ambassadors who arrived about an hour ago in Daru, on the fringe of rebel- held territory, where they were greeted by a Gurkha honor guard.

Prior to the visit, the delegation had been in the eastern town of Kenema, Sierra Leone's third-largest city, where they were about to spend half a day. Their team heard a briefing from the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone, which described the situation on the ground as "complex, unpredictable and volatile".

Though there have been no fights with rebels in the area over the past few months, concerns include the issue of border security and the need to close the porous borders to the outflow of diamonds and to stop external support for the Revolutionary United Front, the RUF.

The delegation drove through the streets of Kenema, which are lined by diamond dealers, to meet with local officials and to visit a Jordanian field hospital and a Ghanaian peacekeeping contingent, and they also visited a camp for some 11,000 internally displaced persons, many of whom sang local songs and chanted, "We want to go home."

**Viet Nam Floods

We have a statement attributable to the Spokesman to the Secretary-General concerning the situation in Viet Nam.

“The Secretary-General is distressed by the devastation being caused by severe floods in Viet Nam. He extends his condolences to families who have lost their loved ones and the Government. The Secretary-General calls on the donor community to contribute generously to inter-agency appeal being prepared by the United Nations to be issued shortly. He hopes that the request made today by national authorities for international assistance in dealing with the consequences of the floods, will receive an immediate response from the international community at large.”

Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 10 October 2000

**Security Council

Concerning the work of the Security Council today, there is no official meeting on for today. Instead, the Member States are participating in the process of selecting new non-permanent members for the Council for its 2001-2002 term, and Susan will tell you all about the elections briefly as soon as I am done with my briefing.

The Security Council expects to hold consultations tomorrow on Angola and is waiting to receive the report by the Secretary-General on the situation in that country. The report is currently being finalized, and it may go to the Council later today; as soon as it is available we will inform you.

**United Nations Development Programme

We have a quick note from the United Nations Development Programme. The UNDP informs us it is sending an advance team to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia this week. The team will be headed by the new officer-in-charge in Belgrade, Frank O'Donnell. The team will propose potential UNDP support in areas related to public sector reform, human rights, corruption and economic reform.

**East Timor

A couple of notes from the briefing of the United Nations mission in East Timor. The United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor has created a working group on disaster preparedness to develop short-term plans to deal with the onset of the wet season. The working group intends to set up a civil relief and disaster preparedness unit that will work under the Department of Police and Emergency Services there.

Further details can be found in the briefing notes from the mission, which are available upstairs as usual. They also have a quick mention on information on two East Timorese athletes who have been selected to compete in the Special Olympics -- which will be held in Sydney, starting October 18.

**Afghanistan/UNHCR

In its briefing notes, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) makes mention of the heavy fighting between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance in northeast Afghanistan, which the agency says has uprooted some 150,000 people in recent weeks.

To deal with a possible refugee problem, UNHCR has begun to move and pre-position essential supplies in Tajikistan, including blankets and plastic sheeting.

For more information, we have their briefing notes available upstairs as well.

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**Iraq Programme

We have our weekly Tuesday update from the Office of the Iraq Programme. Some new numbers on the “Oil-for-Food”. The Executive Director of the Programme Benon Sevan, says there are about $1.1 billion worth of contracts, which are not getting to the 661 Sanctions Committee, because they lack essential technical information. Mr. Sevan says he is concerned at the number and value of these contracts. In a letter this month to the permanent missions in New York, he appeals for more timely response by companies for requests for information. On the oil front, Iraq exported 11.6 million barrels of oil for a revenue estimated to be $305 million, and that brings Phase Eight Revenues to just over $6.2 billion.

And, as usual, the full weekly update is available upstairs.

**Press Releases and Reports

I will just quickly run through a number of press releases and reports available today.

The United Nations Environment Programme reports that the 17th session of the Technical Working Group is to meet in Geneva this week to promote progress under the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal. The Working Group will begin drafting new guidelines for the dismantling of ships built using toxic materials.

Also available is a fact sheet from the World Health Organization on wastes from health-care activities stating that only 20 per cent of waste can be considered hazardous materials.

We have more information upstairs on both of these items.

On the racks is a note by the Secretary-General transmitting the interim report of Special Rapporteur, Asma Jahangir, on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. The report notes that the situation regarding the respect for the right to life is bleak, and the executions have not ceased or decreased. It also calls on governments to ensure that children are not used as “pawns in armed conflict”.

**Accreditation

In terms of accreditation, we have received application forms for media accreditation to the Sixth Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which will be held in The Hague from November 13 to 24. Those of you interested in getting accreditation to that conference can pick them up at the Documents Counter.

The World Chronicle programme no. 799 with Yasmine Sherif, from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, will be shown on in-house television today at 3:30 p.m., and you can watch that either on channel 3 or 31.

Daily Press Briefing - 5 - 10 October 2000

Lastly, a couple of Press Conferences. This afternoon at 1 p.m. the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Colombia, Mr. Giullermo Fernandez de Soto, will be here to discuss the election of non-permanent members to the Security Council and other issues important to Colombia's foreign policy.

Tomorrow we will welcome Olara Otunnu as our guest here at the noon briefing, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict. He will talk to you about his third annual report to the General Assembly.

I am done, any questions?

**Questions and Answers

Question: Is the Secretary-General traveling in the Middle East on his own initiative, or did the Security Council have something to do with it since the Security Council is still seized by the matter by the last resolution?

Answer: The idea from this trip came from the Secretary-General, and it is his own initiative. He obviously consulted with members of the Security Council and other interested parties in the region, but the trip itself is his own initiative, without a doubt.

Question: Do we know how long the Secretary-General met with everybody, for instance with Arafat and Barak?

Answer: I will get you exact times. I think the meeting with Barak lasted for about forty-five minutes. Check with me upstairs afterwards and I will get you the exact times.

Question: Has the Secretary-General been personally in touch with President Clinton?

Answer: He has been in touch with United States administration. I don't know of any specific phone calls he has had with President Clinton, but I will check upstairs for that.

Anybody else? Ms. Markham.

Briefing by Spokeswoman for President of General Assembly.

This morning, the President of the General Assembly is conducting the elections for the five non-permanent members of the Security Council to replace outgoing members Argentina, Canada, Malaysia, Namibia and Netherlands.

The first round of voting finished before the briefing and Singapore, Columbia and Ireland were elected. A second ballot is currently being held to decide between Sudan and Mauritius for the Africa seat and between Italy and Norway for the Western European seat.

The details if you did not hear them -- for the First Round for the Asia seat, Singapore got 168 votes, the required two-thirds majority was 115. For

Daily Press Briefing - 6 - 10 October 2000

Africa, Mauritius got 95 votes, and Sudan 69 votes, and the required two-thirds majority was 115, so neither were elected in the first round. For Latin America and Caribbean, Colombia 168 votes and the required two-thirds majority was 112, so Colombia was elected. The two seats from the Western Europe and other States, Ireland received 130 votes, Italy 94 votes, Norway 114 votes and the required two-thirds majority was 116, so Ireland was elected.

When the elections are finished, we will have a list in the Spokesman's Office of the new members of the Security Council.

And if you want more elections, on Thursday we have the election for 18 seats for the Economic and Social Council. As you know, the term of office for ECOSOC is three years.

So while this drama is going on in the plenary, the Committees are still working away, particularly the Third Committee and the Fourth Committee, which met this morning. The other committees are meeting this afternoon. The Fourth Committee is also going to have elections, not in the Fourth Committee, but for the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, whose report is being discussed currently in the Fourth Committee. There will be elections of 17 members of that body, to be held on the 16th of October.

Any questions?

Thank you.

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For information media. Not an official record.