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

Following is a near-verbatim transcript of today’s noon briefing by Marie Okabe, Associate Spokesman for the Secretary-General.

Good afternoon and Happy New Year to those of you I haven’t said that to yet.

**Noon Guest

Joining us today is Stephen Lewis, the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, who will brief you about his recent visit to southern Africa.  We have a short briefing so he will be with you shortly.  And we have today his press briefing remarks available in the Spokesman’s office.  So, you can pick that up after his briefing.

**Cambodia

On Cambodia, preliminary talks between Cambodia and the United Nations, which began on Monday, resumed this morning after being postponed from yesterday afternoon.  The talks are aimed at preparing for the resumption of negotiations to conclude an agreement on the establishment of Extraordinary Chambers within the judicial system of Cambodia to deal with the prosecution of crimes committed during the period of Democratic Kampuchea.

We will let you know if there will be a press opportunity at the conclusion of the meeting.

**Roed-Larsen travels

Turning to the Middle East, the Secretary-General's Middle East Envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen is in Riyadh for a three-day visit to Saudi Arabia.  He met Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal and other officials to discuss the Quartet road map and the Saudi peace initiative, both of which seek to achieve a negotiated solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Roed-Larsen finishes his consultations in Saudi Arabia tomorrow before departing to Amman to meet with Jordan's Foreign Minister.

Both Saudi Arabia and Jordan are key regional countries consulted by the Quartet, the diplomatic group consisting of the United States, the European Union, the Russian Federation and the United Nations.  

**Security Council

And here in New York, the Security Council is meeting in closed consultations to take up the Secretary-General's report on the Central African Republic.  General Lamine Cissé, the Secretary-General's Representative in the Central African Republic and head of the United Nations Peace Building Office in

Bangui, presented the report to Council members.  A press statement is expected to be read out by the Council President following the consultations.

And tomorrow’s consultations, as you know, will be on Iraq.  Hans Blix, the head of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, and Mohammed ElBaradei, the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, will be briefing on the ongoing inspections operation in Iraq.

**Iraq Inspections

We’re waiting for our daily note on the UN weapons inspections in Iraq, and as soon as it arrives we will let you know.  We will squawk it upstairs.

**Budget

On the Bugdet, we have two more Member States making full payment of their 2003 regular budget contributions today.  Azerbaijan has made a payment of more than $54,000 and Finland, more than $7 million.  There are now 15 fully paid-up Member States this year.

**Press Conferences tomorrow

For tomorrow, press conference at 10:45 a.m.  Ian Kinniburgh, the Director of the UN Development Policy Analysis Division will present the United Nations report entitled “World Economic Situation and Prospects 2003”.  For those of you who are interested, embargoed copies of the report may be obtained from Tim Wall in the Department of Public Information who can be reached on extension 3-5851. 

And that’s all I have for you today.  I’ll turn to Stephen Lewis, unless you have any questions?

Questions and Answers

Question:  Can you give us a progress update on where we are with these Cambodian discussions, negotiations, exploratory talks or whatever?

Associate Spokesman:  The only thing I can tell you today is that they resumed a short while ago and that as soon as we hear from Mr. Corell’s office

-– Hans Corell –- who is leading the United Nations side of the talks, we’ll let you know to see if and when he will be coming down to the stakeout microphone outside the Security Council.

Question:  There were no contacts or movements in the two days when they were suspended or postponed or whatever?

Associate Spokesman:  We have not been informed, but let’s ask Mr. Corell when he comes out of the talks.

If there are no further questions, I’d like to turn to Stephen Lewis.

(Mr. Lewis’s briefing has been issued separately.)

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