DAILY PRESS BRIEFING BY THE OFFICE OF THE SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL

DAILY PRESS BRIEFING BY THE OFFICE OF THE SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL

The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today's noon briefing by Manoel de Almeida e Silva, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General.

**Secretary-General's visit to the Middle East.

Good afternoon.  I am going to start with the Secretary-General's mission to the Middle East.

The Secretary-General has just left Aqaba, Jordan, where he met with

King Abdullah II.  Also present at that meeting were Prime Minister Ali Abul Raghed and Foreign Minister Abdel-ilah el-Khatib.  They met for 45 minutes, including a 10 minute one-on-one encounter between the Secretary-General and the King.

They discussed the Israeli-Palestinian situation and the Secretary-General also received a comprehensive briefing on the implications for Jordan of the current discussions in the Security Council on reviewing the "oil-for-food" programme for Iraq.

The Secretary-General traveled to Jordan from Damascus, where he met this morning with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to review efforts to calm tensions in the Middle East.  Their talks lasted for more than an hour and included a tête-à-tête session.  They also discussed the stalled Syrian track of peace negotiations with Israel, tensions along the Lebanon-Israel border and the Council's efforts to review the Iraq sanctions regime.

Speaking to the press afterwards, the Secretary-General said that he and the President had also taken up the issue of Lebanese and Israeli prisoners, but added that he had nothing specific to report on that topic.

The Secretary-General said that they had discussed the report of the Mitchell Commission, and President Assad had insisted that the basic frame of reference is the United Nations resolutions on the Middle East, particularly resolutions 242 and 338.  The Secretary-General told the President that the Mitchell Report is "an interim step to get the parties back to the table," and does not replace those resolutions.

Asked about the discussions on Iraq sanctions, the Secretary-General noted President Assad's view that the Council should bear in mind the concerns of neighbouring countries, and added that the question of Iraqi oil sales to Syria is "part of the issue being discussed".  We have a full transcript of the Secretary-General's press conference in Damascus available both on our Web site as well as on hard copy in the Spokesman's office.

I should also let you know that yesterday evening the Secretary-General met with the Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa.  After that meeting Mr. al-Sharaa hosted a dinner in the Secretary-General's honour.

**Security Council

Here in New York this morning the Council is meeting in closed consultations.  The latest report of the Secretary-General on the United NationsMission in Kosovo (UNMIK), which came out yesterday, was introduced to Council members by Jean-Marie Guéhenno, Under Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations.

Immediately following, Council members will discuss some logistical aspects of their own mission to Kosovo which is to start tomorrow.  The President of the Council, Ambassador Anwarul Karim Chowdhury of Bangladesh, who as you know will be leading the mission, will be coming here to room 226 at 12:30 p.m. to brief you on that mission.  At that time we will make available to you a press release on the mission including a schedule of the activities of Council members who will be in Kosovo.

Also on the Council’s agenda for today is the weekly discussion, at the ambassadorial level, on the United Nations Oil for Food Programme.

**Iraq Report

Out on the racks today is the report of the Secretary-General to the Security Council on the so-called “cash component” for the Iraqi oil industry.

In resolution 1330 of December of last year, the Secretary-General was requested to make the necessary arrangements to allow funds up to 600 million euros from the United Nations/Iraq escrow account to be used for oil industry. 

A team of United Nations oil experts traveled to Iraq from 18 March to

1 April to look at ways this could be implemented.

Their proposal, as forwarded by the Secretary-General, is for the funds to be initially transferred from the United Nations/Iraq account to a designated bank in Jordan.  Subsequently, the funds will be transferred in euros, in monthly installments, to the Iraqi Ministry of Oil for transfer to the operating Iraqi companies in Iraqi dinars.  Of course the Security Council needs to approve this for it to come into force.

**Missing Kuwaiti Property

Also out on the racks this morning is the Secretary-General’s report on the issue of the return of Kuwaiti property, including archives, seized by Iraq.

In the document, the Secretary-General reports on his contacts with Iraqi and Kuwaiti authorities on this issue, as well as on the activities of his High-Level Coordinator, Ambassador Yuli Vorontsov of the Russian Federation.

In his conclusions, the Secretary-General says that it is unfortunate that Iraq is refusing to cooperate with Ambassador Vorontsov.

Moreover, the Secretary-General adds that Iraqi claims -- that the Coordinator is “playing a role that is other than impartial and is making statements that are hostile to Iraq” -- are groundless and must be rejected in the strongest possible terms.

The Secretary-General adds that Ambassador Vorontsov’s activities will not yield positive results “until and unless a substantial change of attitude on the part of the Iraqi leadership occurs.”

The full text of the report is available on the racks as I just told you.

**Afghanistan

Representatives from the World Food Programme (WFP), and other United Nations officials, met with Taliban officials in Kabul today regarding the WFP proposal to hire women to conduct a survey for keeping open the bakeries in Kabul.

Those discussions are still continuing, although we have nothing to report so far on it.

The bakeries as you know feed more than 280,000 people in Kabul, the Afghan capital.

**East Timor

The Secretary-General’s Special Representative in East Timor, Sergio Vieira de Mello, today outlined plans for the political transition over the electoral period at a donors’ conference in Canberra, Australia.  Mr. de Mello said the budget for the coming year, which he described as “neither lavish, nor imprudent”, would be $65 million.  He appealed to the donor community to help bridge the expected shortfall of $20 million.

In other news from East Timor, United Nations Peacekeepers exchanged fire today with a group of suspected militias, eleven kilometres south of Batugade in the Maliana district.  The Australian peacekeepers were on a routine security patrol when they the encountered the group which fired on the patrol when challenged.  The group withdrew when the patrol returned fire.  No one was injured in the incident.

We have more information in briefing notes from Dili, which we have in our office.

**Central African Republic

The Secretary-General’s Special Envoy to the Central African Republic, General Amadou Toumani Touré, is continuing his consultations in Bangui.  He met with the political opposition and with representatives of the diplomatic community in the capital city of the Central African Republic.

The Special Envoy told the diplomats that although it was primarily up to the Central Africans themselves to find a peaceful solution to the current crisis, he called on the international donor community to do more to alleviate the dire economic situation of the country.

**Budgets

Today two more Member States paid their contributions to the regular budget for this year in full.  Brunei Darussalam made a payment of more than $341,000 and Burundi more than $10,000.  There are now 89 fully paid up Member States this year.

**Signings

This morning, Fiji became the ninety-third country to sign the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.  The Convention was adopted on 22 May at the Conference of Plenipotentiaries in Stockholm and was signed by 92 countries over the two days of the Conference.  So far, only one country, Canada, has ratified the Convention.

**Press Releases

We have two press releases to bring to your attention today.

The first one:  High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson welcomed the release of the report on child soldiers by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers.  She said, “This study draws attention to the continuing widespread abusive exploitation of children through their involvement in armed conflict.”  She went on to call on States to ratify the Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict.

The second press release is from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).  It says that it projects that air traffic will grow at an average annual rate of 4.5 per cent over the period 1999-2010.

** Press Conferences

As I already mentioned to you, following this briefing, at approximately 12:30 p.m., Ambassador Chowdhury, President of the Security Council will be here to talk about the Council's mission to Kosovo and Belgrade.

Tomorrow our guest at the noon briefing will be Olara Otunnu, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict.  He will be joining us to talk about the action plan for war-affected children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

At 11:00 a.m. tomorrow, Ambassador Bagher Asadi of Iran, Chairman of the Group of 77 developing countries and China, which is celebrating its thirty-seventh anniversary this year, will be here to talk about the Group's accomplishments since it was created in 1964.

Following our briefing tomorrow, at around 12:30 p.m., Danilo Turk, Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs will be here to brief you on the report of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of armed conflict which is expected to be released tomorrow.  While the press conference will be on the record, it will, however, be embargoed until 3:30 p.m. tomorrow.

Before we move to Sue Markham, Spokesperson for the President of the General Assembly, are there any questions?

** Questions and Answers

Question:  There are reports that the talks between the Taliban and the WFP in Afghanistan have broken down.  What is going to be the next step now?  If the humanitarian personnel there cannot function are we at the end of the road with Afghanistan?

Deputy Spokesman:  We are so fortunate today because to answer your very good and technical questions we have two experts here from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) who follow the Afghan situation very closely.  So perhaps we could have Rashid Khalikov, Chief of Office of the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, come up and answer your questions?

Mr. Khalikov:  First I would like to make it very clear that the negotiations between the Taliban and the WFP were on the specific issue of bakeries and the survey of beneficiaries in Kabul.  Those negotiations were not about the overall humanitarian assistance programme in Afghanistan.  Of course the results of this negotiation have implications for the overall programmes, but for now it concerns one specific issue on which negotiations are ongoing with a chance of them continuing tomorrow.

Question:  The Taliban are not being very responsive to the requests of the United Nations on a lot of things and the situation would appear to be deteriorating.  Where do you see things going and what is the future of the Organization's involvement in Afghanistan?

Mr. Khalikov:  We always believe that we will be able to have an operating environment that will allow us to continue providing assistance to the most vulnerable sectors of the population in Afghanistan.  As you are aware, that sector is increasing dramatically because of the impact of both war and drought. As far as the specific issue of bakeries is concerned, we continue to talk to the Taliban about the bakeries in Kabul.  We are talking about 300,000 beneficiaries as was mentioned earlier.  But we also talk to them about the whole operating environment and in this respect negotiations are also ongoing.

Question:  Do those negotiations address the role of women?

Mr. Khalikov:  Yes, the role of women.  They are also about security of our staff, freedom of movement, and access to vulnerable populations.  These negotiations are an ongoing process as in any other part of the world affected by conflict where the United Nations is involved in providing assistance.  We always talk to the parties to the conflict to allow us to provide assistance to those in need.

Question:  How would you characterize the relationship between the United Nations and the Taliban right now?

Mr. Khalikov:  I would say that it is not very easy.  But we continue to talk to them and it is our intention to keep doing that because we have a humanitarian imperative.  We have to provide assistance to those in need of such assistance, and of course we have to find the solution to our problems in terms of access and other issues related to the environment in Afghanistan.

Question:  It seems that sometimes the Taliban allow the women to go and work and at others they do not allow it.  What are the reasons behind that?

Mr. Khalikov:  The WFP is providing assistance to around

300,000 beneficiaries in Kabul.  In the last three or four years we did not have a chance to survey the population and determine who is really in need of this assistance.  That is why we need to carry out this survey now.  Of course, in accordance with the situation there, only females may enter a household and carry out an interview to determine who is really in need.

We hope that we would be allowed to use females to interview and assess the needs.  In that respect, I would not say that the Taliban are changing their position dramatically.  They had said that they would allow women to work only in the health sector.  The issue of the survey has therefore been under discussion with them for some time.  It is very difficult to say why they change their position in other negotiations but on this particular issue their position was pretty much the same.

Question:  Where do you stand with the Taliban now on the issue of safety of United Nations personnel?  They had said that any threats to or attacks on the organization's personnel were coming from outside groups -- foreigners.

Mr. Khalikov:  We negotiated a memorandum of understanding with them that was signed in May 1998.  They made the commitment that they would respect the safety and security of humanitarian personnel working in Afghanistan.  They kept assuring us that they would do that, but there were recent incidents where the Taliban harassed local staff.  Whenever such incidents took place, we talked to them.  They keep assuring us that they will respect the safety and security of humanitarian workers –- international staff. 

Briefing by the Spokesperson for the President of the General Assembly

**Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary)

This afternoon the General Assembly will take decisions on 27 reports of the Fifth Committee.  These relate mainly to the financing of United Nations peace missions.  A full list of the reports that will be taken up by the Assembly this afternoon are in today's Journal and the documents are available at the documents counter.  We can help you retrieve them if you cannot find them.

** Working Group on Security Council Reform

The President of the Assembly, Harri Holkeri (Finland), this morning chaired the meeting of the working group on Security Council reform, which is continuing its discussions of the working methods of the Council.

Yesterday the Working Group was addressed by the President of the Council, Ambassador Chowdhury, and other members of the Council, including Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock of the United Kingdom and Ambassador Alfonso Valdivieso of Colombia.

At yesterday's meeting there was a discussion about the working methods of the Council, which most participants agreed had improved in recent months due to more transparency and openness.  Many participants, however, raised serious concerns, noting for example that the Council still held more closed meeting than open ones.  There was a call for more regular meetings between the Working Group and the Council since participants found yesterday's meeting to be very useful.

**Preparatory Committee for Special Session of General Assembly on Children

This afternoon, the Assembly President will address a seminar on girls' education, which is being held in connection with the Preparatory Committee meeting for the Assembly's upcoming special session on children (19-21 September). The education of girls is an important issue for the President.

In his statement Mr. Holkeri notes, that in spite of all the international agreements, commitments and conferences to promote universal education, more than 110 million children, most of them in the developing world, are denied their basic right to education.  Two-thirds of these 110 million children are girls, who also constitute the majority of school dropouts.  The full text of the President's statement is available from my office.

The Preparatory Committee today continues its consideration of the draft outcome document.  This will also continue tomorrow in Conference Room 4.  A number of the official delegations include children, and a large number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are also participating.

Some 3,000 NGOs have been invited to participate in the special session itself.

**President's Itinerary

Tonight the President will leave New York for a trip to Finland.  He will be away all of next week and will return to Headquarters in time for the Assembly special session on HIV/AIDS, which starts on Monday 25 June.

That is all I have.

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