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

Following is a near-verbatim transcript of today’s noon briefing by Hua Jiang, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General, and Richard Sydenham, Spokesman for the President of the General Assembly.

Good afternoon.

**Statement Attributable to the Spokesman for the Secretary-General

The Secretary-General welcomes the decision by India and Pakistan to carry out a partial withdrawal of troops from their border areas.  He hopes that this reduction will result in a significant de-escalation of tensions in Kashmir.  The Secretary-General reiterates his call on both sides to resume their bilateral dialogue with a view to resolving their differences by peaceful means.

**Secretary-General’s Travels

The Secretary-General is in Kazakhstan today, where he met this afternoon for an hour with President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

They discussed Kazakhstan’s progress over the past decade, regional security and the proposed Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone Agreement for Central Asia, conflicting claims to the Caspian Sea, the phenomenon of Islamic militancy in the region and the international efforts to stabilize Afghanistan.  They also discussed Security Council efforts to come to agreement on the conditions for the return of United Nations weapons inspectors to Iraq.

After the hour-long meeting, the President presented the Secretary–General with the Order of “Dostyk”, or “friendship”, the highest award given to non-Kazakh nationals.  We have copies upstairs of what the Secretary-General said upon receiving that award.

Following his meeting with President Nazarbayev, the Secretary-General took a few questions from the press, including one on his reaction to the recent resolution by the United States Congress on the use of military force in Iraq.  The Secretary-General noted that discussions are under way in the Security Council to send the United Nations inspectors back in, possibly with a resolution to strengthen their hands.  He added that those discussions were taking place after the Congress decision, which, he said, “would lead me to believe that the United States would prefer to work with the Council and with the international community”.

The President then hosted a dinner in honour of the Secretary-General and his wife, Nane Annan.

Before arriving in Kazakhstan, the Secretary-General spent the morning in Mongolia, where he and Nane Annan attended a breakfast hosted by President Natsagiyn Bagabandi and the First Lady of Mongolia.  The Foreign Minister, Luvsangiin Erdenechuluun, and his wife were also present.

After breakfast, the Secretary-General was joined by Prime Minister Nambar Enkhbayar at the opening ceremony of United Nations House, a handsome, two-story structure given by the Government to house all United Nations agencies, funds and programmes working in Mongolia.

He then met with representatives of about ten United Nations agencies, including the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, which have programmes in Mongolia and then met with United Nations staff, talking with family members of United Nations staff killed in a helicopter accident in Mongolia in January 2001.

**North Korea

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has expressed concern over the alleged enrichment programme of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), and it has urgently requested further information, both from the DPRK and from the United States.

The IAEA reiterated the need for full cooperation from the DPRK, which it has not received in the past years, and for compliance with all its obligations.

IAEA Director-General Mohammed ElBaradei will issue a statement shortly, and once we get that, we will put it out from here, as well.

**Security Council

The Security Council entered the second day of its open debate on Iraq, called at the request of the Non-Aligned Movement.

There were 40 speakers scheduled for today, bringing the two-day total at this time to 70, with the Security Council members slated to speak following the non-members.

The Counter-Terrorism Committee, chaired by Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock of the United Kingdom, is scheduled to meet at 4 p.m. this afternoon for a briefing by the chairman.

**Middle East

Ross Mountain, the Assistant Emergency Relief Coordinator, met with Israeli Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, in Jerusalem yesterday.

Mr. Mountain has been leading an inter-agency technical assessment mission that will propose a humanitarian action plan for the coming

12 months, and he discussed with the Foreign Minister the deteriorating humanitarian situation resulting from the closures and curfews imposed in the West Bank and Gaza.

He also expressed his serious concern about the lack of progress in implementing the specific commitments made by Israel to the Secretary-General’s Personal Humanitarian Envoy, Catherine Bertini, during her mission two months ago.

The technical assessment mission is due to leave Jerusalem tomorrow.

**Afghanistan

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, warned that this year's opium poppy crop in Afghanistan would be much larger than last year's.  In his opening remarks at the Second International Drug Control Coordination Meeting in Kabul, Brahimi said that “preliminary assessments have projected this year’s poppy crop at around

2500 tonnes…  It is inevitable that the harvest will maintain Afghanistan’s place at the top of the poppy exporting countries”.

He added that “the government is showing its clear intention to lower opium production here”.  He concluded that “controlling drugs is a long-term endeavour.  It will take time to build institutions, time for the economy itself to become strong enough to offer alternative livelihoods to poppy farmers”.

Also in Kabul today, in a press briefing, Eric Laroche, UNICEF’s Representative for Afghanistan, highlighted some incidents recently involving schools being burned down or attacked by rockets.  He appealed to journalists to play the role of a mediator to help people to react to these acts of violence.

We have his briefing notes in the office upstairs.

**Human Rights

Yesterday afternoon, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Sergio Vieira de Mello, expressed his serious concern about the deterioration of the humanitarian and human rights situation in Côte d'Ivoire and launched an urgent appeal to the Government and the armed groups to take all necessary measures to end the suffering of the civilian population and to comply with the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

He said that violations committed since September 19, including summary executions and arbitrary arrests, could be prosecuted either before the national judiciary or the International Criminal Court, whose statute has been signed by Côte d'Ivoire.

Vieira de Mello called on the Government and the armed groups to cooperate with the negotiations being carried out by the United Nations and West African mediators.

We have copies of his statement upstairs.

**Angola

Chaired by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Angola, Ibrahim Gambari, the Joint Commission for the implementation of the pending tasks of the Lusaka Protocol held another ordinary meeting on Thursday morning in Luanda.

The participants were briefed by Mr. Gambari on his contacts since the last meeting.  Gambari said that he is going to extend his contacts to various parties of civil society.

**Bosnia

The United Nations Mission in Bosnia announced today that the provisional authorisation given to 11 Bosnian police officers had been removed after the officers were found to have used sexual services provided by local nightclubs.  The United Nations International Police Task Force’s special anti-trafficking operation found several of the officers frequenting nightclubs that it raided in its efforts to fight human trafficking in Bosnia.

The Mission, in a statement, said, “It is particularly appalling that these 11 police officers, by frequenting these establishments and using their sexual services, were directly or indirectly condoning the fact that human trafficking was taking place there.”  It also accused some of the officers of hindering raids on the clubs by giving advance notice to club owners.

We have more details in a press release from the Mission.

**Kosovo

A conference to bolster outside investment in Kosovo will start tomorrow at New York’s Hilton Hotel, with a particular focus on informing the roughly half a million Kosovo Albanians living abroad about the investment opportunities back home.

Among the speakers at the opening session of the Kosovo Investment Conferences tomorrow will be Francesco Bastagli, the Secretary-General’s Deputy Special Representative for Kosovo, and Kosovo Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi.

We have a press release with more information upstairs.

**International Day for the Eradication of Poverty

Today is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty and to mark the Day, the United Nations Development Programme’s Equator Initiative has awarded its Equator Prize to 27 communities around the world.  The award, worth $30,000, recognizes outstanding achievement in reducing poverty and protecting biodiversity in countries in the equatorial region.  The winners were chosen from more than 420 nominees from 77 countries.

In his message on the Day, the Secretary-General said that this was an opportunity to recommit to the Millennium goals and reflect on the progress, or lack of it, achieved so far.  He added that the world is not on track to meet the Goals by 2015.  “Poverty is an old enemy with many faces”, he said.  “Defeating it will require many actors to work together.”

A short while ago, a ceremony to mark the day began in the United Nations Garden at the Commemorative Stone dedicated to victims of poverty.

We have press releases with more information on the awards and the activities taking place today, as well as the Secretary-General’s message.

**Food and Agriculture Organization Telefoods Concert

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) announced today that a benefit concert featuring Luciano Pavarotti has raised more than $220,000 for the battle against hunger.  The concert was held in the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco on 12 October, Pavarotti’s 67th birthday, in front of an audience of more than 1,800 people who sang “Happy Birthday” to the maestro.

The concert was part of the FAO's TeleFoods campaign, which organizes events to provide resources for grassroots projects around the world designed to fight hunger.

We have a press release with more details.

**Angelina Jolie, Goodwill Ambassador

Oscar-winning actress Angelina Jolie, who is a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, took time off from shooting the sequel to the movie, “Tomb Raider”, in Kenya, to travel to a refugee camp in the northwestern part of the country.

Jolie was visibly moved as she heard stories from refugee girls from Sudan who had flocked to welcome her on her visit earlier this week to the Kakuma refugee camp, home to some 80,000 people.

She shook her head in disbelief as she heard how many of the girls and women in the camp were subjected to various forms of violence -– from rape to genital mutilation -– and how many were unable to attend school due to domestic chores.

Jolie made a personal donation of $200,000 to UNHCR's work in Kenya, earmarking $50,000 of her donation to build a new school for girls at the camp.

You can read more about this on the UNHCR website.

**Budget

One more Member State made full payment of this year’s regular budget contribution today.  The Federated States of Micronesia became the 109th fully paid up Member State with a payment of more than $11,000.

Questions and Answers

Question:

How concerned is the United Nations over the declaration by North Korea that they have a secret nuclear weapons programme?

Spokesperson:

The International Atomic Energy Agency has expressed concern over the alleged enrichment programme of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and it has urgently requested further information, both from the DPRK and the United States.  The IAEA reiterated the need for full cooperation from DPRK, which it hasn’t received in the past years, and for compliance with all its obligations. IAEA Director General Mohamed ELBaradei will issue a statement shortly and once we get that we’ll pass it on to you.

Question:

The Secretary-General is in the region, will there be anything on his schedule as far as meeting, talking on the phone or even traveling?

Spokesperson:

Not today. It’s already very late there so he’s not going to react to it today.

Question:

How will this news potentially impact his travels in the region? For instance, would he divert himself and perhaps travel over to the area, to North Korea?

Spokesperson:

That’s certainly not in the plan.

Question:

Did you say that you have a press release on the Mongolia celebration and that the Secretary-General actually launched the new house, the new United Nations House?

Spokesperson:

Yes, the Secretary-General attended a ceremony launching the opening of a new United Nations House in Mongolia and also there are remarks, which he made when he received the award from the Mongolian Government and those are available upstairs.

Question:

Why did De Soto go to Turkey?

Spokesperson:

He is there to push forward the talks, as you know, that have been going on for a long time, and this is just part of the process.  And you know that he expressed optimism that progress will be made.

Question:

At the same time the creation of this (inaudible) site are in a deadlock?

Spokesman:

I think for further comment you’ll have to get back to Cyprus and the Spokesman there will give you more information on that.

(A public announcement was later made that the statement from the IAEA Director-General was available from the Spokesman’s office)

Statement by Spokesman for the President of the General Assembly

Good afternoon.

In his message today on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, General Assembly President Kavan says, “Events of 11 September 2001 underline the fact that peace and security are closely linked to issues of poverty.

“In the Millennium Declaration, Member States unanimously resolved to try to halve the number of some one billion extremely poor people in the world by the year 2015.  Current reports, however, indicate that this issue needs to be addressed pragmatically and rigorously at all levels to achieve substantive results.

“The United Nations General Assembly and I personally will continue to maintain our focus on this complex and difficult objective and request Member States to review their progress on this matter.  In the fight against poverty action by the United Nations can only be part of the solution.  Action by governments is crucial to achieve this goal.”

Today in the General Assembly, a plenary holds a joint debate on agenda item 33 -– Causes of conflict and the promotion of durable peace and sustainable development in Africa and on the Final review and appraisal of the implementation of the United Nations New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s (UN NADAF) and Implementation of the programme for the Second Industrial Development Decade for Africa.  Some 33 speakers are scheduled today.

The First Committee continues consideration of draft resolutions on disarmament and related international security items, including regional disarmament and confidence-building measures.

The Second Committee discusses macro-economic policy questions and Sustainable development and international economic cooperation.

The Third Committee has a number of social development issues on its agenda today, including Implementation of the outcome of the World Summit for Social Development, Follow-up to the International Year of Older Persons, Advancement of Women, and it will begin discussion of the Programme of activities of the International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People.

The Fifth Committee discusses Financial reports and audited financial statements.

This afternoon the Sixth Committee will hear statements on item 162 of its agenda -– Report of the Working Group on International Convention against

the reproductive cloning of human beings.  The Chairman of the Working Group will introduce the report.  There are some 13 Member States and two observers scheduled to speak today, as of just before this briefing.

Looking ahead, next Monday 21, the General assembly will elect five members of the International Court of Justice.

Questions and Answers

Question:

Given that the First Committee is meeting, what possibility is there that they could take up this issue of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea?

Answer:

I don’t know if that is on their agenda. I will look into it.  I have no information on that.

Spokesperson:

Any more questions?  Okay, have a very good afternoon.  It could be a long one.

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