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 Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, and Susan Markham, Spokeswoman for the President of the General Assembly.

Briefing by Spokesman for Secretary-General

We have some students here from Norway, journalism students. Welcome to the briefing. I would also like to welcome our guest today, Jayantha Dhanapala, the Under Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs, and he will be giving you a wrap-up of the General Assembly’s First Committee.

**Middle East

We have the following statement on the Middle East.

The Secretary-General and the Foreign Minister of Israel, Schlomo Ben Ami, met this morning and reviewed the Middle East peace process. They agreed on the need to secure the full implementation of the Sharma el-Sheikh understandings. They also emphasized the need to restore calm and create the right atmosphere for the resumption of peace negotiations.

In this regard, they were encouraged by the recent agreement between former Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Chairman Yasser Arafat. In view of the bomb attack earlier today in Jerusalem, the Secretary-General reiterates in the strongest possible terms his condemnation of terrorism, from whatever quarter, and other violence affecting civilians. He strongly believes that those who oppose peace by using such means should not deter the parties from making every effort to return to the negotiating table.

As you may know, the senior Palestinian official, Said Erakat, had been scheduled to be at Headquarters to meet with the Secretary-General today, but that meeting could not take place, because Erakat was prevented from leaving Jericho in time to be here today.

**Security Council

The Security Council is holding consultations this morning on Georgia. Council Members will be taking up the Secretary-General’s report concerning the situation in Abkhazia, Georgia, which came out earlier this week. Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Hédi Annabi, will be briefing the Council.

The Council is also expected to adopt their programme of work for the month of November. They agreed this morning to hold consultations next Wednesday on the subject of the Middle East.

Meanwhile, Ambassador Kishore Mabubani of Singapore will be attending Council sessions as of today, until Singapore takes its seat as a non-permanent

Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 2 November 2000

member of the Council on the first of January. As you know, Singapore is one of the five countries elected for Council membership during the period 2001/2002. As a result of the alphabetical order in the Council presidency rotation, Singapore will preside over the Council during January.

**Sierra Leone

The Secretary-General’s seventh report to the Security Council on the United Nations mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) came out as a document yesterday afternoon.

In the report, the Secretary-General said that it appears that UNAMSIL will not be able to achieve significant gains in its authorized strength and that, in fact, current offers of troops and equipment will not be sufficient to compensate for the withdrawal of the Indian and Jordanian contingents.

He, however, reiterated the need for the mission to increase its strength to 20,500, in order to secure key areas of the country. He warned that unless additional troop contributors can be quickly identified, it will not be possible to envisage the further strengthening of the United Nations mission until well into the year 2001.

As a result, the credibility of international military presence in Sierra Leone could be undermined, he said. He appealed again to Member States, in particular, those with large and well-equipped armed forces, to urgently consider participating in the mission.

I also have a brief update on the issue of diamonds and Sierra Leone. The United Nations Panel of Experts on Sierra Leone is conducting its second tour of the region to collect information on the link between trade in diamonds and in arms.

Meanwhile, the Government of Sierra Leone is authorized to export diamonds under a United Nations-approved diamonds certification programme. The Sierra Leone Sanctions Committee gave the green light for that on the sixth of October.

**Ethiopia-Eritrea

The phase two deployment of the United Nations mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) is now complete, with some 100 United Nations military observers in the mission area. Reconnaissance has begun for phase three, which involves the deployment of up to 4,200 military personnel.

During the next several weeks, specialist military personnel will be conducting detailed reconnaissance in those areas where their national contingents are likely to be deployed as members of the peacekeeping force. These reconnaissance teams will be drawn from the military forces of the Netherlands, Canada, Jordan, Kenya, Denmark and Italy.

**Yugoslavia

Shortly after 7 p.m. last night, the flag of the newest member of the United Nations, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, was hoisted at a ceremony, at which the Secretary-General described the moment as a “milestone in the long and difficult passage of the Balkans towards becoming a truly free and democratic region”.

**Uganda

In news from Uganda, the first confirmed case of Ebola haemorrhagic fever outside the Gulu District has been confirmed. It has been found in the district of Mbarara, southwest of the country. The virus was confirmed at the field laboratory set up in Gulu by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Ugandan Ministry of Health has requested assistance from WHO, and a WHO-led team has been dispatched to Mbarara. We have a press release on that.

**ILO Governing Body

The International Labour Office Governing Body begins its 279th session today in Geneva. Forced labour in Myanmar, freedom of association and globalization are among the items on the agenda. The meeting will also receive the first report of the representative for the Director-General for Cooperation with Colombia. You can look at the press release for more details.

**Secretary-General on Leave

The Secretary-General will be working at home tomorrow. He is expected to continue working the phones actively on the Middle East issue and preparing his trip next week to the Islamic summit in Qatar.

**Guest tomorrow

Our guest tomorrow at noon will be Dennis McNamara, the United Nations Special Coordinator for Internal Displacement, who will talk about the recent inter-agency mission to Ethiopia and Eritrea, which he led.

Any questions before we go to Sue?

Question: When will the Secretary-General meet with Mr. Erakat?

Spokesman: We are trying to reschedule it for Monday, but that’s not firm yet.

Question: On Sierra Leone, I know that there is no direct connection between the establishment of a special court and deployment of UNAMSIL, but do you feel that there may be some difficulty in full implementation of the court if the United Nations military presence is not up to force?

Spokesman: I don’t know that I would directly link those two events. I think our efforts would be to move forward with the establishment of the court and, as the Secretary-General said in his report, the credibility of the international military presence could be at risk if we don’t get some substantial offer of troops to offset the loss of the Indians and the Jordanians. Sue.

Briefing by Spokeswoman of President of General Assembly

**President’s Trip to Vienna

Thank you. The President of the General Assembly will be travelling to Vienna over the weekend. On Monday, he will deliver the keynote address to the general assembly of the Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations in Consultative Status with the United Nations, known by the acronym CONGO. This is a meeting that’s held every three years by the NGOs, and this is the first time it will be in Vienna.

One of Mr. Holkeri’s priorities is outreach to civil society, and he has frequently remarked on the need to have NGOs and other partners in civil society more involved in the work of the United Nations. So his trip to speak at this important NGO meeting is a way of expressing this in concrete terms.

While he is in Vienna, Mr. Holkeri will hold a press conference at the Vienna International Centre at 1 p.m. Vienna time on Monday the sixth of November. Mr Holkeri will return to New York on Monday night, and we have a schedule of his trip available in the Spokesman’s Office.

**General Assembly Session

This morning, the General Assembly discussion began on the Culture of Peace, and they were near the end of that discussion as I left for the briefing.

Then they will take up the issue of AIDS. There will be a resolution, which they will presumably adopt this afternoon, that will decide to convene the special session of the General Assembly on this issue from 25 to 27 June next year.

The President will be asked to chair the consultations for preparations for this special session of the General Assembly, including the elaboration of the draft declaration, and also to make recommendations on the involvement of NGOs in the special session.

**Tomorrow’s General Assembly Session

Tomorrow the General Assembly will take up cooperation between the United Nations and the Organization of the American States (OAS) and also the item on strengthening the United Nations.

There will be a resolution before the General Assembly on that item, which will establish the dates for the opening of the next General Assembly and the closure of this General Assembly. The proposal is that the closure will be on Monday, the tenth of September, and the opening of the new General Assembly would be on the eleventh of September.

Mr. Holkeri sent around a letter to Member States earlier last month suggesting that the General Assembly not continue the ad hoc arrangements that it has been having year by year about the closure of one session and the opening of the next session, and that it establish a permanent way of knowing a long time in advance when it’s going to be.

So, the formula is that it would be the Tuesday following the second Monday in September. At the moment, it’s the Tuesday following Labour Day, which has turned out to be quite impractical, because the General Assembly would close on the same day that the next session would open, and it’s following a holiday.

So, this new formula would allow the previous session to close on a working day, immediately before the new session opens. And, once the General Assembly adopts this resolution tomorrow, a number of other scheduling decisions can be made, including, for example, the dates on the General Assembly special session on the follow-up to the World Summit for Children.

We have a revised schedule for November, which is available upstairs. And also, if you are interested in following Mr. Dhanapala’s briefing, we have a list of all resolutions and decisions that were adopted by the First Committee, and I think there are copies available by the side of the room. Thank you.

Spokesman: Any more questions for Sue?

Question: Is the general debate going to start earlier in September from now on?

Spokeswoman: No, it’s not relating to the general debate, it’s just relating to the opening of the new session of the General Assembly and then they would schedule the general debate after that. But I don’t have a date.

Question: Are they going to begin on the Tuesday of the first Monday of September?

Spokeswoman: The Tuesday following the second Monday, because the first Monday is a holiday.

Question: Do you have any report on Credentials Committee action taken on Afghanistan yesterday?

Spokeswoman: I believe the report will be out either today or tomorrow.

Question: And the present arrangement is still holding?

Spokeswoman: Yes, I can confirm that it’s the same decision as last year.

Question: Was there a vote?

Spokeswoman: I believe not.

Question: Fred, was the Secretary-General concerned that the raising of the Yugoslavia flag took place in the early evening, when there would be less awareness and less news coverage?

Spokesman: You know we never make decisions here taking into consideration news coverage. From my point of view, of course, that’s not good. We knew earlier in the day that it was going to be later in the day, so we arranged for floodlights on the flag, so that we could compensate for the darkness. But I’m sorry if that wasn’t convenient for you.

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Question: Is there any information on what will be going on at the Crime Conference in Palermo in December?

Spokeswoman: I can give you some information afterwards. I don’t know off the top of my head. I’m sorry.

Question: According to the New York Post, Robin Byrd, a TV star, was at this party at the Four Seasons restaurant yesterday and mingled with Kofi Annan. Did he have any impression of her?

Spokesman: He didn’t mention it to me. If there are no further questions, we will go to you, Jayantha. Welcome to the briefing.

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