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 the Deputy Spokesman of the Secretary-General, Hua Jiang, and the Spokesman of the President of the General Assembly, Richard Sydenham.

Briefing by the Deputy Spokesman of the Secretary-General

Good afternoon.  Our guest today is Carolyn McAskie, Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator in the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, who will brief you shortly on the launch of the Consolidated Appeals for 2003.  The theme of next year’s appeals is “Hope for the Future” and will call on the international community to provide $3 billion to assist 50 million people.

In a statement issued through his Spokesman, the Secretary-General called on the international community to give generously.  He also called for “redoubled efforts to address the root causes of conflict and other crises, so that people gain not only relief from their most immediate distress, but also the hope for full recovery, development and the resumption of normal life”.  (See Press Release SG/SM/8506-IHA/748.)

In Bern, Switzerland, earlier today, the Deputy Secretary-General, Louise Fréchette spoke at the launch of the Appeals.  She said that the theme underscores the need to remember that “humanitarian assistance is not an end in itself, but must be accompanied by efforts to build a bridge from disaster to development”.

We have the full text of her remarks and the Secretary-General’s statement available upstairs.

**Secretary-General Travels

The Secretary-General is now in Belgrade where he met about an hour ago with Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica and Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic.  The Secretary-General and the President also had a brief press encounter, the transcript of which we expect to receive later today.

The Secretary-General’s other meetings in Belgrade this afternoon include those with Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic of Serbia and President Milo Djukanovic of Montenegro.

Earlier today, the Secretary-General was in Kosovo where he visited the northern town of Mitrovica, including the predominantly Serb North Mitrovica, where the United Nations runs a police academy.  He was briefed on the training programme there.

Afterwards, he and his wife Nane travelled by helicopter to a pair of villages near the Serbian border, one Serb and one Albanian, Gornji Makres and Donji Makres.  In a schoolyard in Gornji Makres, he was greeted by children who offered him traditional bread in welcome, as well as by village leaders. 

While in that border town, the Secretary-General spoke to reporters saying it was good to see a village where the residents -– including Kosovo Albanians and Serbs -– realized they had to live together and put the past behind them.

Asked about Iraqi activity in the “no-fly” zones, the Secretary-General responded, “I don’t think that the (Security) Council will say that it is in contravention of the resolution which was recently passed”.

He also spoke to reporters as he left Pristina saying that he had “a brief but full visit” to Kosovo, and that he sees the United Nations Mission there as a success, with Kosovo having “come a long way” since he visited two years ago. He stressed the importance of the rule of law in Kosovo, adding, “The incidents of last weekend, where bombs were thrown in the churches, is not anything anyone can condone”.  We have the transcripts of his press encounters upstairs.

Late yesterday, the Secretary-General and his wife Nane met with relatives of the missing, who had been demonstrating silently outside the United Nations headquarters in Pristina, and he told them that the issue of missing persons was an important one that he would raise with President Kostunica.  He told them, “We share your need to know”.

**Iraq

Our colleagues in Baghdad tell us that today the Executive Chairman of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, Hans Blix, and the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, met on 19 November with the diplomatic corps and representatives of United Nations agencies in Baghdad.

They are having a second meeting with Iraqi officials as we speak, to conclude discussions on the resumption of inspections.

Mr. Blix and Mr. ElBaradei are expected to hold a joint press conference at the UN offices in Baghdad later today, following the meeting with the Iraqi officials.  The two are expected to depart Baghdad tomorrow morning.

**Security Council/ Oil-for-Food

The Security Council is holding closed consultations this morning on the UN’s Iraq Oil-for-Food Programme.  The Executive Director of the Programme, Benon Sevan, presented to the Security Council the latest report of the Secretary-General on the Oil-For-Food programme which was issued last Thursday. Highlights of that report are upstairs on a newly released “fact-sheet”.

As you know, the current phase of the programme, phase twelve, ends on November 25th.

We expect Mr. Sevan to come to take some questions from the press at the Security Council stakeout after his presentation.

And today, being Tuesday, we also have our regular update on Iraqi oil sales which showed a slight increase in the volume of oil exports to 8.3 million barrels in the week ending 15 November, up from the previous week’s total of 7.3 million barrels.  The week’s exports netted an estimated $169 million.

The full text of the weekly update is available upstairs.

**UNHCR

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) today welcomed Poland’s recent decision to allow a group of 150 Russian Federation nationals from Chechnya to enter the country and seek asylum there. They are the first Chechens to be allowed to seek asylum in Poland in weeks.

The Polish authorities had decided to bar Chechens from entering the country following the October 23 terrorist attack on a Moscow theatre by Chechen separatists.

UNHCR hopes that the admission of these asylum-seekers represents a permanent return of Poland's policy of open doors to Chechen asylum seekers.

UNHCR continues to be concerned about the situation in neighbouring Lithuania which, earlier this month, barred 26 Chechens –- mostly women and children –- from entering the country and applying for asylum.  UNHCR hopes that Lithuania will follow Poland's example and reopen its doors to Chechens.

Also from UNHCR, in a bid to draw more attention to the worsening humanitarian situation in Colombia, UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie has released a personal, day-by-day account of her recent encounters with Colombian refugees in Ecuador.

For more information, please pick up the UNHCR briefing notes.

**IPU Day Speech

Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Kieran Prendergast today spoke on the Secretary-General’s behalf to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and the Secretary-General’s message noted the “immense substantive contribution” that the union of Parliamentarians has made to the United Nations’ work.  (See Press Release SG/SM/8507.)

The Secretary-General adds in the message, he will now be establishing a panel of eminent persons, broadly representative of civil society and government, to consider further United Nations reform, and he expresses his confidence that the Inter-Parliamentary Union will have much to contribute to that panel’s work.

We have copies of the message upstairs.

**Afghanistan

United Nations Messenger of Peace Muhammad Ali wrapped up his visit to Afghanistan, issuing an open letter to the children of that country in which he told them that they would succeed if they prepared their minds for the challenges of life, by studying hard; prepared their bodies by practicing physical activity and sports; and had faith, which, he said, “will help you through the most difficult days”.

During his visit, Ali said, he had seen not just the Afghanistan of today, but of tomorrow.  He told the children, “That tomorrow will be your tomorrow, and the world must not fail you”.

We have copies of his letter upstairs.

**Hebron

I’d been asked questions about the statement our office issued last Friday on Hebron.

The information available to us when the statement was issued was that the victims were Israeli civilians returning from religious service.  It now appears that the Israeli victims were in fact soldiers and security personnel.  The Secretary-General remains deeply concerned about the continuing spiral of violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory.

The Secretary-General continues to believe that only a comprehensive solution, developed through a process that addresses political, security, humanitarian and economic issues in parallel, can ensure real security for both Israelis and Palestinians.

**Questions & Answers

Question: Did you receive any answers from Mr. Denktash and, if you received them, what is the reaction of the Secretary-General?

Deputy Spokesman: We haven’t received any response from Mr. Denktash.  But, as I’m sure you know, Mr. de Soto met with the Greek Cypriot leader, Mr. Clerides, yesterday.  And the Secretary-General said that he was still waiting for a response from Mr. Denktash and he believes that he will be able to help all sides to come together and to use his proposal as a basis for further comprehensive settlement.

Question: How long is he willing to wait for the answer?

Deputy Spokesman: Mr. de Soto, after meeting Mr. Clerides, said to the press, we don’t want to put undue or unfair pressure on the two sides.  But the clock is ticking.  And we trust that a solution to that problem will be found. So, there is a sense of urgency.  Therefore we hope that we’ll soon get a response from Mr. Denktash.

Question: The Turkish side yesterday in a statement said that Mr. Denktash and Mr. Erdut Ogun talked about de Soto and conveyed their inability to answer with this timeframe.  They also said that it was not a deadline.  So, how do you comment on that?  Did you give him an extension, and for how long?

Deputy Spokesman: It’s not a deadline.  But one has to realize that the calendar is an essential and integral and inseparable part of the proposal.  So that if the proposal is accepted as a basis for a negotiation, then you have to have a firm commitment from both sides to try to reach a settlement before the date.  When I say the date, it’s the date that the European Union is going to hold their summit in Copenhagen on 12 December.

Question: Did they give you a date when they will answer?

Deputy Spokesman: No, we haven’t got any indication on the exact date when the response will be expected.

Question: If they don’t answer what are you going to do?

Deputy Spokesman: Well, as I said, the Secretary-General has faith that he would have a response from both sides and so we are waiting.

Question: How long are you willing to wait for an answer?

Deputy Spokesman: Well, as I said just now, the clock is ticking and the calendar is an important part of the proposal that the Secretary-General proposed.

Question: Do you have any information about Mr. Denktash’s health?

Deputy Spokesman: Mr. Denktash’s health?  Yes, he’s still in the hospital. But for further details regarding his health I think the best person to talk to would be the mission here.

Question: You find today Chechen refugees not admitted by Lithuania.

Deputy Spokesman: I know that they were turned back.

Question: Where?

Deputy Spokesman: Turned back to Russia.  To Chechnya.  The last information I got was that we didn’t know the whereabouts of those people but that was last week.  So if you want to know the latest, I’ll have to check it for you and come back to you afterwards. 

Briefing by the Spokesman of the President of the General Assembly

Good afternoon.

     This morning President Kavan welcomed Parliamentarians attending the traditional UN-IPU meeting of parliamentarians attending the fifty-seventh session of the General Assembly.  He welcomed the parliamentarians not just as president of the General Assembly but as a parliamentarian himself.  He is, of course, a member of parliament of the Czech Republic.

In his opening remarks President Kavan said that, “The formal cooperation between the United Nations and the Inter-Parliamentary Union has a relatively short history.  It was only in 1996 when the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the United Nations signed a cooperation agreement.  However, the informal cooperation of our two organizations has certainly much deeper roots.

“Both the IPU and the predecessor to the United Nations, the League of Nations, were, from their inception, based on the same principles stemming out of the pacifist movement at the end of the 19th century.  Peaceful settlement of international disputes was their primary objective.  The same principles have guided the work of both our organizations, though the range of other issues and objectives has substantially increased.”

                He goes on to say, “The report of the United Nations Secretary-General regarding this cooperation, prepared for the fifty-seventh General Assembly, enumerates nearly 30 fields of activities.  I especially appreciate the valuable contribution of the IPU to all the recent major United Nations conferences, namely the Special Session of the General Assembly on Children, the World Food Summit+5 in Rome, the United Nations Conference on the Financing for Development in Monterrey and the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg.  I’d like especially to recognize and praise the invaluable work of the IPU in the field of human rights and gender issues, particularly the important actions targeted to combat violence against women”.  The President’s remarks are available on the web site and also on the third floor.    

The General Assembly plenary this morning took up reports of the Sixth Committee which were introduced by the Rapporteur of the committee.  The plenary took decisions by consensus on a number of items including: protection of victims of armed conflicts; safety of diplomatic and consular missions; immunities of States; UNCITRAL; International Law Commission; relations with the host country; establishment of the International Criminal Court; report of the Special Committee on the Charter and Strengthening of the United Nations; the international convention on human cloning; and on oceans and law of the sea.  It also considered cooperationbetween the United Nations and the Inter-Parliamentary Union, which was granted observer status.  The plenary then continued debate on the report of the Secretary-General on assistance in mine action, with 6 speakers this morning on that topic.

The Third Committee takes action on a draft resolution on advancement of women and continues discussion and action on draft resolutions on human rights questions and the Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

The General Assembly plenary tomorrow will take up the item: cooperation between the United Nations and regional and other organizations in a joint debate.

Any questions?  Thank you.

**Questions & Answers

Question: I notice in the journal today that you have about 35 closed meetings. Why do you have so many closed meetings?  If you look at the journal, it’s like the United Nations is closed.  All the meetings are closed, closed, closed, closed.  Why?

Spokesman for Assembly President: I think you have to ask Member States that question.

Question: It is not the duty of Member States to close the United Nations. Thirty-five meetings for the day; that’s too much to be closed for the day.

Spokesman for Assembly President: I think the President strongly believes in discussion and consultation.  Why there are an exceptional number of closed meetings, I don’t know.  I will see if I can find out and see if this is particularly more than in past years.

In general, the President strongly believes in transparent and open discussion on all the issues before the General Assembly.  But I will look into it and see if this is a particularly increasing trend for closed meetings.

Question: Can you find out if it is a conflict of interest because someone in the Disarmament Committee has gone on record as saying that they don’t like to have non-governmental organizations at disarmament debates because it is a conflict of interest.  Because so many of the countries have issues they don’t want to disclose.  They don’t want to be transparent about what’s going on in their own countries.  So?

Spokesman for Assembly President: I will look into that and get back to you on that. 

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