In progress at UNHQ

DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

14 November 2000



Press Briefing


DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

20001114

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

Briefing by Associate Spokeswoman for Secretary-General

**Secretary-General and Prime Minister Ehud Barak

Good afternoon. The Secretary-General’s plane and the Israeli Prime Minister’s plane landed at London's Heathrow Airport for refuelling today, and the two leaders took the opportunity to meet. They discussed the situation in the Middle East.

In his half-hour meeting with Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel, half of which was a one-on-one meeting, the Secretary-General briefed him on his visit to Doha, Qatar, where he attended the summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). Prime Minister Barak had a chance to share with the Secretary-General his discussions in Washington, D.C., with President Clinton of the United States.

The Secretary-General then had a 10-minute telephone conversation with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

In a press encounter following the meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister, the Secretary-General said discussions focused on how to stop the violence and find a way of getting the parties back to the table. A transcript will be available shortly in the Spokesman’s Office.

The Secretary-General is now in the air on his way back to New York.

**Security Council

The Security Council has a full programme of work today.

They started by meeting in closed consultations to hear two briefings by Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Marie Guéhenno.

The first briefing was on the Secretary-General’s report on the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), including the latest developments since the report was issued on 31 October, and the second was on the ceasefire agreement recently agreed to by the Government of Sierra Leone and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF).

Following that, John Renninger, the Director of the Asia and the Pacific Division in the Department of Political Affairs, will brief the council on the peace agreement signed by warring factions in the Solomon Islands on 15 October in Townsville, Australia. Yesterday, the Council received a letter, which is available on the racks, from the Mission of the Solomon Islands that includes the full text of the accords.

In the afternoon, the Council is scheduled to hold open meetings. The first is to be on the situation in Georgia. The Council is expected to adopt a draft Presidential statement on that country at the conclusion of the meeting.

And the second meeting will be on the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. During this meeting, they will be briefed again by Under-Secretary-General Guéhenno of the Peacekeeping Department.

**East Timor-Council Mission

The Security Council mission to East Timor and Indonesia this morning concluded its stay in East Timor after meeting the diplomatic corps based in Dili, after which the leader of the delegation, Ambassador Martin Andjaba of Namibia, held a press conference.

From Dili, the Council team flew to Kupang in West Timor, Indonesia, where it met with senior Indonesian civilian, military and police officials to discuss aspects of Security Council resolution 1319, particularly the need for security, the disarming and disbanding of militia and the return of refugees to East Timor.

Andjaba said in a statement that the Council had come “as friends of Indonesia” and would work with Indonesia to solve the problems.

This afternoon, the delegation attended a public ceremony organized by the Indonesian police for the destruction of weapons confiscated from the militia. Indonesian authorities told the Council that they have, so far, collected 114 standard firearms, 18 grenade launchers and more than 1,300 home-made weapons.

The Council team also visited the Noelbaki refugee camp, about 20 minutes away from Kupang, where some 7,800 East Timorese refugees live and where members talked with several refugees on their views about repatriation and reconciliation. Then they went back to Kupang to meet civil society groups who are dealing with the refugee problem in West Timor.

**Mary Robinson in Middle East

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, is continuing her trip to the Middle East.

In Cairo today, she met with the Secretary-General of the Arab League, Ahmed Esmat Abdel-Meguid, and Egypt’s Foreign Minister Amr Moussa.

Tomorrow, the High Commissioner is to return to Gaza to meet with the President of the Palestinian Authority Yasser Arafat.

Her final stop will be Amman, Jordan, before returning to Geneva at the end of the week.

**Deputy Secretary-General in Sweden

Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette is in Stockholm today, where she is scheduled to deliver the keynote address to the Swedish Forum for Human Rights shortly. We have a copy of her speech, embargoed for 12:30 today, just after this briefing, and that’s available upstairs.

In it, she draws attention to the “compliance gap” between countries’ commitment to human rights standards and the entrenchment of those standards in national legislation. She also discusses the links between human rights and economic and social development, and the effort to end impunity for human rights violations.

**Ethiopia-Eritrea

Today in Addis Ababa, the Secretary-General’s new Special Representative for the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea, Legwaila Joseph Legwaila, met with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

Legwaila called the meeting “extremely cordial and productive” and said that Ethiopia had done its part to sustain the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement.

And we have a press release on that meeting upstairs with more information.

**Press Releases

On press releases, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that 4,000 displaced persons in Chechnya are expected to be moved to a new tented camp in Ingushetia. The camp will hold up to 200 large tents housing up to 20 persons each.

Meanwhile in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, UNHCR staff conducted a two-day mission to remote border areas to contact newly arrived Angolan refugees for the first time.

The mission estimates that some 1,000 Angolans have crossed the border in the past few weeks and these refugees say that thousands more have erected makeshift shelters in the forests on the Angolan side of the border.

More information is available in the UNHCR’s Briefing Notes from Geneva.

The World Food Programme said in its briefing in Geneva that it is increasingly concerned over the poorest people living in drought-affected regions of Georgia. There has not been adequate response to the appeal for an emergency operation to provide food to 700,000 people for an eight-month period. The elderly and children are the biggest concern for the United Nations food organization.

And finally, our guest for tomorrow at the noon briefing will be Thérèse Gastaut. She is the Director of Public Affairs for the Department of Public Information (DPI), and she will be talking about United Nations World Television Forum, which is taking place on Thursday and Friday.

And that’s all I have for you today. I’ll turn over to Sue unless you have some questions. Sue?

Briefing by Spokeswoman of President of General Assembly

The President of the General Assembly today is in Washington, D.C., meeting with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and, while he is there, he is also meeting with some of the Washington press corps. He will be back tonight to preside over the General Assembly tomorrow.

In the General Assembly this morning, the plenary is discussing the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina which is coming at a time five years after the conclusion of the peace accords and at a time when they have just had important elections.

The debate in the plenary emphasizes that much has been achieved but more needs to be done, including the return of refugees, the revitalization of the economy, the arrest and trial of indicted war criminals, the establishment or enhancement of a free and pluralistic press, the combating of corruption and the reduction of the military. And these aspects are emphasized in the draft resolution which is expected to be adopted later this morning.

Earlier, the plenary elected one member of the Economic and Social Council. This was as a result of Greece relinquishing its seat in favour of Malta for the period 2001/2002. And Malta was elected.

The Chairman of the Special Committee on the Situation with regard to the implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, the Ambassador of Papua New Guinea, introduced a draft decision which the General Assembly then agreed to; which basically was to decide to hold a special plenary meeting this year to observe the fortieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. The date of this special plenary meeting will be announced later.

In the plenary tomorrow, as the first item, they will adopt the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, and then there will be a discussion on the General Assembly special session to be held next year in follow-up to the World Summit for Children.

Also tomorrow in the morning, the General Committee will meet and it is expected to recommend an additional item on the General Assembly’s agenda. This is concerning the granting of Observer status to the Economic Community of Central African States.

**Committees

In the committees today, the Fourth Committee is discussing questions relating to information, and the Sixth Committee is discussing measures to

eliminate terrorism. And there are informal consultations going on in the Fifth and the Second.

And I can confirm, in answer to a question yesterday, that the First Committee report will be taken up by the plenary in the afternoon of 20 November. And as I get more confirmation of other Committee reports coming up in plenary, I’ll let you know as soon as I can in advance. Thank you, that’s all I have. Any questions?

Associate Spokeswoman: I’m sorry I have on more item that I somehow omitted by accident. It’s the latest figures from the Office of the Iraq Programme for the week leading to 10 November that indicates there were eight loadings at Mina al-Bakr and Ceyhan oil terminal, earning Iraq $299 million for the export of 10.6 million barrels of oil under the oil-for-food programme.

Since the start of the current phase VIII in June, Iraq has exported 326.6 million barrels of oil for an estimated revenue of over $8.4 billion.

There was a slight decrease in the total value of contracts placed on hold by the Security Council’s 661 Sanctions Committee. At the end of last week, $2.26 billion worth of contracts were on hold status. The Committee members often cite the lack of technical specifications and potential dual use as reasons for placing a contract on hold.

The full text of the weekly update is available in the Spokesman’s Office.

I’m sorry for that late update, and have a good afternoon.

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For information media. Not an official record.