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 Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General.

Good afternoon.

I am sorry for the delay.  With us today is Olara Otunnu, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict.  He was recently in Afghanistan and in a short while, he will talk to you about that visit.   [Mr. Otunnu's briefing is being issued separately.]

**Middle East

Last night, the General Assembly approved a resolution calling for the immediate cessation of military incursions and all acts of violence, terror, provocation, incitement and destruction in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.  It also called for Israel to withdraw immediately from the Palestinian population centres and return to positions held prior to September 2000.

The Assembly further called for urgently needed assistance to help alleviate the current dire humanitarian situation facing the Palestinian people and to assist in rebuilding and revitalizing the Palestinian economy.

That resolution received 114 votes in favor, four against and 11 abstentions, and following a day-long discussion, as part of the resumed Tenth Emergency Special Session on the Middle East, of the Secretary-General’s recent report on the events that took place in Jenin and other Palestinian cities this spring.

**Security Council

The Security Council this morning held its first consultations for the month of August, under the Presidency of US Ambassador John Negroponte.

Council members today are discussing the program of work for the month ahead, and they also received a briefing from Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Hédi Annabi on recent developments in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Council intends to return to that subject in a meeting on Thursday, which South African Foreign Minister Nkozagana Dlamini-Zuma is expected to attend.  Representatives of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda are also expected to attend that meeting.

Tomorrow, the Council will hold a private meeting to talk to the Deputy Foreign Minister of Angola, before it will hold consultations, also on Angola.

**Iraq

You are all awaiting news on the Secretary-General’s reply to the Foreign Minister of Iraq.  The Foreign Minister of course, sent a letter to the Secretary-

General last week on Thursday, inviting chief weapons inspector Hans Blix to Iraq for technical discussions. 

It’s difficult to say when that letter will go out.  We do expect the Secretary-General to share copies of the letter with members of the Council.  It could be out by the end of today or it may not go out till tomorrow.  It’s too early for me to say.

**Oil-for-Food Programme

On the oil-for-food programme, Benon Sevan, the Executive Director of the Iraq Programme, has written to the Acting Chairman of the Security Council’s 661 Sanctions Committee on Iraq to express his “grave concern” at the reduced levels of Iraqi oil exports, and the corresponding level of low revenues under the oil-for-food programme.

In the letter, dated 1 August, he notes that “two months into phase 12 of the programme Iraq had exported only 63.2 million barrels of oil”, an amount that is lower than previous recorded levels of monthly exports under the programme.  He adds that, “even by the most conservative estimates, some $1.5 billion in revenue has been lost, owing to a reduction in the level of Iraqi oil exports”.

Sevan warns that the shortfall could result in very serious consequences for the humanitarian situation in Iraq and appeals to the members of the 661 Committee and the Government of Iraq to take all necessary measures to resolve any difficulties, including, in particular, the long-outstanding question of the pricing mechanism for Iraqi crude oil exports. “ The cooperation of all concerned is essential”, he said.

We have the full text of the Iraq programme’s weekly update and copies of this letter upstairs.

**Myanmar

Razali Ismail, the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Myanmar, left Yangon today, 6 August, after completing his five-day mission aimed at facilitating the national reconciliation process in Myanmar.  It was his eighth mission and the first since the remaining restrictions on Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s movement were lifted on 6 May.

During his stay in Myanmar, Mr. Razali met separately with leaders of both the Government and the National League for Democracy (NLD), including Lt.-Gen. Khin Nyunt, Secretary-1 of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), and NLD General Secretary Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.  He also met with the leaders of several ethnic nationality parties.

Mr. Razali believes that the national reconciliation process will continue to evolve positively along a number of fronts; and in a way that corresponds with the “spirit” of the home grown process that has developed thus far.  He was informed by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi that as a result of her recent travels in the country, she was willing to cooperate with the Government in ways that directly benefit all the peoples of Myanmar and would contribute to the evolution of a democratic State. 

Mr. Razali hopes that the international community will nurture and encourage this process and respond appropriately. 

**Ugandan/Afghan Refugees

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) today is sending two relief teams into northern Uganda, following Monday's devastating attack by the Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance Army on the Acholi-Pii refugee camp.  The raid on the camp, which housed 24,000 Sudanese refugees, left at least 14 people dead and dispersed the camp's entire population.

In an update on the Afghan refugees, UNHCR says it has reduced the number of registration centres in Pakistan and cut back on their operating hours due to a drop of the number of Afghan refugees returning home from Pakistan.  The hot temperature, anxiety about security, and the end of the planting season are among the reasons attributed to the decline in recent weeks.  Last week alone there was a drop of 21 per cent in the number of returning refugees from the previous week.

To date, more than 1.4 million people returned home under the Afghan Authority/UNHCR programme.  UNHCR still faces a $43 million shortfall in its $271 million budget for the Afghanistan crisis.

**Reports and Press Releases

Out on the racks today is the Secretary-General’s report on the implementation of the outcome of the Global Conference on Small Island Developing States.  In it he notes that activities on the integrated management of the Caribbean Sea have greatly increased, but says there is room for improvement in the provision of information and wider use of the Small Island Developing States Network.

Also out as a document today are two orders by the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission, one on the Badme region and the other on the establishment of a Field Office of the Commission in Adigrat.

We also have a press release from the Food and Agriculture Organization today which is launching an appeal for $1.3 million to assist about a half million cattle, goat and camel farmers in the Afar region of Ethiopia.  The new funds will supply drugs, animal feed and water to keep the animals alive during the crisis.  The region has been affected by severe drought and the situation has been aggravated by fighting over grazing land and water.

**Budget

Budget news: today, the Maldives paid their 2002 regular budget assessment with a contribution of just over $11,000.

They become the 90^th Member State to do so.

**Note from Jan Fisher

Yesterday, Richard Roth, who is not here today, asked about the repair work being done in the General Assembly Hall.  According to the Office of Central Support Services, the ceiling tiles and the lights in the Hall are being replaced and asbestos is being removed.  Work is progressing according to plan and is expected to be completed at the end of this month.

**Rolando

I would also like to congratulate the UN staff members in the General Service category who recently passed the highly competitive examination to win Professional posts.

One of those is Rolando Gomez of the Spokesman’s Office.  You haven’t seen him in a while.  He’s been almost two years in Eritrea and before that he spent six months in East Timor.  But he’s been with my Office since the mid-1990s, specializing in peacekeeping.

He also got married last year and he became a father very recently.  He and his wife Cecilia named their son Teo.

So double congratulations to Rolo.

Press Conference for Tomorrow

A press conference: 2:30 tomorrow, Miloon Kothari, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing.  And he will be here to brief you on his work.

That’s all I have.  Any questions before we go to Olara?  Greg.

Questions and Answers

Questions:  Fred, yesterday morning the Secretary-General said he did not want to drag out the reply to the Iraqi Foreign Minister.  Is there anything that is delaying this, the response?

Spokesman:  No.  He wants to consult with Hans Blix, who is in Sweden on holiday.  So, we don’t know how long it’s going to take for the two of them to connect.  But the letter will not go out until he has that consultation.  And we hope it can be done before the end of today.  But we’re allowing for the possibility that it might slop over till tomorrow.

Question:   Yes, Fred.  Yesterday you had a question from Richard Roth during the briefing in which he asked you whether your office has complained to Al-Hayat about publishing a quote from Dr. Blix’s interview, and you said you wanted to take a look.  And my question to you is that have found yourself or through the office of Dr. Blix that there was something to complain about?  Have you received any complaints from Dr. Blix’s office about the interview that was published by Al-Hayat on Sunday?

Spokesman:  No.  When the press reports came out on Sunday that the interview which you conducted had been published, Dr. Blix’s office called me immediately to say that the interview pre-dated the receipt of the letter from the…

Questions:  The interview was conducted on Thursday, anyway.  The same day of the letter, right?

Spokesman:  I don’t think that’s relevant.  I think the relevant thing… what he told me was that the interview was conducted before the letter had been received.  Yes, it was the same day.  But it was conducted before the letter was received.  So, what came up yesterday was whether Al-Hayat, your newspaper, had

indicated in the published version that this was so.  And I thank you for bringing the copies to me this morning.  I haven’t had time to study them.  I don’t know whether you have anything to add as to whether there was such a notice or an item in the paper.

Question:   Two things: First of all, just for clarification, because this is like a smear campaign against the credibility of my friend and the professionality of my paper and myself -- not by you by any stretch of the imagination.  As you know, whenever we conduct interviews on any afternoon, by the time… because we go to print midday.  So, by the time we transcribe and translate it normally takes two or three days.  So that’s the norm.  That’s number one.  But my question to you has Dr. Blix’s office, to your knowledge, tried to disavow or retract or say there was any inaccurate presentation of what he said to us in substance in the interview that was published?  To your knowledge, has he tried to retract any of it, or disavow any of it or to consider any of it inaccurate?

Spokesman:  No.  But I think the reason why his spokesman called me on Sunday, is had he been aware of the letter, he would not have replied to your question.

Question:   Right.  But my point is that after receiving the letter; after reading the letter; to your knowledge, has he to your knowledge -- there were a couple of more days before we could print anyway because of that time difference in London -- has he since reading the letter tried to disavow or to retract or to make any changes with us, me as a correspondent before the interview was published or afterwards?  Has there been any attempt to disavow that this was his mind-set?  That this is what he said?  That’s essential.

Spokesman:  I don’t want to speak for him.  To my knowledge, he did not.  But I am not sure that’s a relevant question and I’d rather his spokesman handle any further questions on this subject, if you don’t mind.

Okay. Olara, welcome to the briefing.

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