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 record of today's noon briefing by Marie Okabe, Associate Spokeswoman for the Secretary-General.

**Secretary-General meets Pakistani President in Islamabad

Good afternoon.

The Secretary-General began his visit to Pakistan this morning with a meeting with representatives of about a dozen United Nations agencies working in the country.  They reported on their programme activities.  For example, the head of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees reported that some     45,000 refugees had been moved out of the temporary camp at Jalozai to more comfortable quarters and that the camp would be closed in about two weeks.  The refugees caught in a no-man’s land at Chaman crossing were now settled and that problem was solved.  He added that the managed return of refugees to Afghanistan would get under way by the end of March. 

After that meeting, the Secretary-General made an unscheduled visit to the Pakistan Human Development Forum, a three-day meeting at which the Government was to present its long-term strategy for social and human development to donors and non-governmental partners. 

President Pervez Musharraf laid out the Government’s plan for economic revival, poverty reduction, good governance and political restructuring. 

In the afternoon, the Secretary-General met with Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Abdul Sattar, for about an hour.  Their discussions focused on rebuilding Afghanistan while stabilizing that country and on the India/Pakistan relationship, including the tensions over Kashmir. 

He and the Foreign Minister then gave a joint press conference.  In his opening statement, the Secretary-General stressed the need to resolve Pakistan’s differences with India, including over Kashmir, through peaceful means.  “The immediate need is for military de-escalation,” he said, but that is not enough.  He called for a two-pronged approach; first, “sustained and determined action against extremist armed groups” and, second, “sustained and determined dialogue between Pakistan and India.”

On Afghanistan, he said, “a stable Afghanistan is in the interest of all its neighbours, and constructive cross border relations would give a real boost to stability throughout the region.”

In the evening, he met with President Musharraf.  He and the President then had a working dinner hosted by the President.

We are expecting the transcript of his press conference in the Spokesman's office shortly.

**Secretary-General Travels

And as you know the Secretary-General will make a one-day visit to Afghanistan tomorrow.  He has a full programme there, which includes a visit to a girls' school being re-opened with the help of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

In the evening he departs for Iran.  His program in Tehran on Saturday, which includes meetings with the President and the Foreign Minister, is now posted on the UN Web site.

**Afghanistan

As you recall, earlier this week at the Tokyo Conference, the Secretary-General, in his speech there said that $1.3 billion is needed to cover immediate needs, and $10 billion would be required over the next five years.  The Immediate and Transitional Assistance Programme 2002 was presented to the donor community immediately following the Ministerial Meeting.  It presented an outline of the estimates for $1.33 billion.

The largest allocation for immediate needs goes to food assistance at over $300 million.  $221.6 million has been identified for support to the civil service, to cover the needs of the Interim Authority.

To address the needs of the nearly 4 million refugees and 1 million internally displaced people, $208.5 million has been identified.

Education has also been cited as another key area of concern, and some   $85.8 million will be needed to rebuild the education system.

We have a summary table of the Programme available upstairs, and a press release is available on the racks if you want further information.

**Goma

Distribution of non-food emergency supplies got underway today, at 10 sites  in Goma in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and at one site in the neighbouring town of Sake.  The UNICEF is coordinating this operation.

Meanwhile, the World Food Programme (WFP), in cooperation with NGO partners, also continued general food distribution to thousands of people in Goma and Sake.

The WFP reports that food continues to arrive in the Goma area in sufficient quantities.  The agency plans to distribute approximately 8,000 MT of food in the DRC for the first month.

Recent assessment missions conducted in the Goma area have confirmed the tendency for displaced persons to return to the town.

The head of the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Secretary-General's special representative, Amos Namanga Ngongi, and the mission’s force Commander, General Mountaga Diallo, were in Goma today –- their second visit in 72 hours.  There they met with officials of the RCD –- Rally for Congolese Democracy -- which is the de facto authority in Goma.

Ngongi told the officials that the UN mission was committed to assisting in the humanitarian efforts of the UN agencies and NGOs and added that assisting the population of Goma was of paramount importance.  In this regard, he said that air and ground assets from the UN mission were used to cope with the crisis and help transport humanitarian assistance to the needy population.

RCD officials commended the UN mission for its active contributions and emphasized the key cooperative role played by senior UN officials from the mission who were in Goma at the time of the eruption.

On the financial side, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs, some $12 million has been released to date for the humanitarian effort under way in Goma.  This figure does not include in kind contributions, such as air transport.

**Security Council

There are no meetings of the Security Council scheduled for this morning.

At 3 p.m. this afternoon, Council members will hold a private meeting with troop contributing countries to the UN mission in Georgia.

Also this afternoon, the Security Council’s Counter-terrorism committee will meet.

**East Timor

Letters have been sent out from the Secretary-General to the heads of State or government of all Member States, as well as the Holy See and Switzerland, inviting them to East Timor on 20 May this year to attend the ceremony marking the independence of East Timor.

**Lebanon

This morning in Beirut, the Secretary-General’s Personal Representative for southern Lebanon, Staffan di Mistura, issued a statement calling again on all parties to exercise maximum restrain and fully respect the Blue Line.

This follows yesterday’s violation of the Blue Line when Hezbollah launched a heavy military attack, using mortars and some missiles, at four Israeli positions in the Shaba farms area.  Israeli forces then retaliated by artillery and attacks by aircraft.

Such violations, di Mistura said, contribute to a potential exacerbation of an already volatile situation.

This morning, di Mistura met with Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hamoud to express the United Nations' deep concern about yesterday’s deplorable breach and asked for the Lebanese authorities to do their utmost to ensure stability in the area. 

We have the full statement available upstairs in the Spokesman's office.

**Peacekeeping

We have available for you today a background note on peacekeeping operations also available in the Spokesman's office. 

There are currently 15 peacekeeping operations deploying some 47,000 military and civilian police personnel from 87 countries.  The number of uniformed personnel is an increase of some 9,000 since one year ago, up from approximately 38,000 in December 2001 and reflects the build-up to full strength of United Nations peacekeeping missions in Sierra Leone, Ethiopia and Eritrea and the continuing deployment of the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

As I said, this note is available upstairs and is also posted on our Web site.

**Budget

Today, three more countries joined the ranks of those who have made full payments of 2002 regular budget contributions.

Hungary made a payment of more than $1.3 million, Kuwait of more than    $1.6 million and New Zealand more than $2.6 million.

So far this year, we have 34 fully paid up Member States.

**Press Releases

We have a few press releases to flag today.

One is from UNEP, the UN Environment Programme, on a new $1 million ecotourism project being funded by the cosmetics company Aveda and the UN Foundation.  The money will be used to promote tourism and environmental protection in a number of national parks around the world.

We also have a press release from the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) urging countries to ban the animal antibiotic chloramphenicol, which could possibly cause cancer.

Finally, there’s a press release from UNDP on next week’s meeting in New York of the committee preparing for the World Summit for Sustainable Development, which will open in Johannesburg this August.

**World Chronicle Programme

World Chronicle programme number 847 with Joseph S. Blatter, President of FIFA, will be shown today at 3:30 p.m. on in-house television channel 3 or 31.

And as of now I have no press conferences schedules today or tomorrow.

That is all I have for you today, any questions?

**Questions and Answers

Question:  Did the conflict between the Israelis and the Lebanese Hezbollah happen in the south of Lebanon?

Answer:  I think you should take a look at the press release.

Question:  Could you give us some context to the peacekeeping operations background note, is this an all-time high?

Answer:  As you know we put out these statistics monthly for you.  I don't want to venture into the exact statistics, but the number of peacekeepers is not at an all-time high.  The number of peacekeepers hit an all-time high in the early 90's due to the situation in the Balkans.  I can get the exact figure for you later. 

[It was later announced that the all-time high in peacekeeping personnel had been in 1993 and that the exact number amounted to 78,744 people.]

Any other questions?   If not, have a great afternoon.

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