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

Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, and Richard Sydenham, Spokesman for the General Assembly President.

Spokesman for Secretary-General

Good afternoon, everyone.

We’re joined today by the Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs, Jayantha Dhanapala, and he has with him the Director of the UN Mine Action Service, who is sitting in the third row there, Martin Barber, who will be joining us here at the table in a few minutes.  The fourth anniversary of the Ottawa Convention marks the first deadline for a large group of countries to destroy their stockpiles of anti-personnel mines.  And our guests are here to report on the progress these countries have made.  And we’ll be getting to them in just a minute.

**Secretary-General in Cyprus

This morning, the Secretary-General met with H.E. Glafcos Clerides, the Greek Cypriot leader, H.E. Rauf Denktash, the Turkish Cypriot leader, as well as H.E. Tassos Papadopoulos, the incoming Greek Cypriot leader, for 45 minutes at the Office of his Special Adviser, Alvaro de Soto, in the UN Protected Area.

This was the first face-to-face meeting held between Papadopoulos and Denktash in the context of talks.  The leaders agreed to suspend the meeting so that each side could hold its own consultations, and they agreed further to meet with the Secretary-General again tomorrow morning.

The Secretary-General then conferred with his senior advisers before he departed to the Residence of the Chief of the UN Mission in Cyprus, where he met with Dimitris Christofias, the Leader of AKEL, the Progressive Party for Working People.

Later on, the Chief of the UN Mission, Zbigniew Wlosowicz, hosted a luncheon on behalf of the Secretary-General, attended by 13 leaders of the island’s political parties.  When he said good-bye at the door to the guests, he was asked by a journalist whether he was hopeful about the outcome of the talks, and he told the reporter, “I see you are too young to be pessimistic.  Why not?”

This evening, he will drop by an exhibition given by Greek and Turkish Cypriot artists, held at the hotel where he is staying.

**Security Council

The Security Council is holding consultations on Iraq today.  Council members have before them two documents:  a draft resolution by the

United Kingdom, the United States and Spain; and a joint memorandum by France, Germany and the Russian Federation.

**UNMOVIC  

Our daily report from Baghdad on the weapons inspections tells us that the Mirage IV jets provided by France successfully carried out their first surveillance operation yesterday.

Meanwhile inspection teams from the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) continued to visit a variety of sites.  One UNMOVIC team supervised the successful drilling of eight remaining artillery shells filled with mustard gas, as well as the detoxification of mustard gas taken from the shells.

Another UNMOVIC team returned to the Al Aziziyah Airfield and Firing Range and observed further digging in search of R-400 aerial bombs and bomb fragments.  Iraq claims that these bombs were filled with biological agents and destroyed at this site in 1991.  Additional fragments of R-400 bombs were identified.

Meanwhile the IAEA conducted a radiation survey in industrial areas west of Baghdad and you can get more information and details from a note that I have in my office.

**North Korea

Maurice Strong, the Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), has been in Seoul, South Korea, this week to attend the inauguration of the new President of the Republic of Korea,

Roh Moo-hyun, with whom he met on Tuesday.

He conveyed to the President warm congratulations on behalf of the Secretary-General and a letter in which the Secretary-General pledged to continue to do everything in his power to mobilize international support for the inter-Korean dialogue, reconciliation and cooperation.  He also would facilitate Korean and international efforts to keep the peninsula free of weapons of mass destruction and the risks of war. 

The Personal Envoy reported on the mission that he is undertaking for this purpose on behalf of the Secretary-General, and the South Korean President expressed his support for this initiative.  Immediately prior to his visit to Seoul, Strong met in Tokyo with Japan’s Foreign Minister and other senior Japanese officials to discuss the same issues.  He will now proceed to Beijing and Moscow.

**ICTY

Saying that “no sentence can fully reflect the horror of what occurred or the terrible impact on thousands of victims” in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia today sentenced the former President of the Republika Srpska, Biljana Plavsic, to 11 years in prison.  As part of the Bosnian Serb leadership, Plavsic disregarded reports of widespread ethnic cleansing and publicly rationalized and justified it, the Tribunal said.

The former Bosnian Serb President had pleaded guilty to one count of crimes against humanity, at a hearing last October, and the Prosecutor’s Office dismissed several other counts against her.  The Tribunal took her guilty plea, her voluntary surrender to the Tribunal, her age and her post-conflict conduct into account when determining her sentence.  We have a press release with more details upstairs.

**Afghanistan

Today’s briefing notes from the UN mission in Afghanistan show that UN missions to several areas in the northern part of the country have been suspended for the last two weeks due to factional skirmishes in the area.  The mission also reports suspensions in the south-eastern part of the country due to instability.

**Press Releases

A couple of press releases to highlight for you today.

From Timor-Leste, we have news from the UN peacekeeping force that they have captured one man suspected of involvement in the recent attacks in Atabae in the Bobanaro District.  The man was held when Fijian troops conducting a search came across armed men trying to cross the Mota Loes River.  He was wounded during an exchange of fire and was taken to hospital under guard.

The second press release is from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which welcomes the news that reduced fertility rates are helping to slow global population growth.  “World Population Prospects: the 2002 Revision”, which was launched yesterday and on which you were briefed here, said about half of the difference in growth projections is due to lower expectations of future fertility rates.  The world population projection for 2050 is now 8.9 billion, an increase of 2.6 billion, instead of the increase of 3 billion projected two years ago.

**Budget

Budget news:  Two more Member States have paid in full for this year for their regular budget contributions.  The Republic of Korea, with a cheque for $24 million approximately, and one from Tunisia for more than $405,000.  That makes 54 Member States paid in full.

**Drill

Now, we have been announcing to you that there is going to be a fire drill, an evacuation drill of the building today.  We can’t give you the exact time, it will happen sometime before 4:00, and we are using the drill to examine all our evacuation procedures.  We’re going to need your cooperation.  All staff, of course, are required to participate.  Those working in the southern side of the building, including most of you, would be expected to walk out of the building down First Avenue to 39^th and 38^th Streets.

If you’re interested in covering the drill as journalists, you are invited to watch the proceedings from Ralph Bunche Park, right across the street.  You will hear the signal, then it’s time to jump.

**Electrical Shutdown

Other bad news:  There will be an electrical shutdown in the

General Assembly building tomorrow (Friday) at 7:00 p.m. until 2:00 a.m. Saturday morning.  A handout with a list of those areas affected can be picked up from my office.  These include the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd basements of the parking garage –- this means no power, lighting, air conditioning, heating or ventilation.  You may need a flashlight to find your car if you go home late on Friday night.

That’s all I have for you.  Any questions?  Yes?

**Questions and Answers

Question:  There are some indications that some embassies have been closed in Baghdad.  Are there any current plans for withdrawing United Nations staff from Baghdad?

Spokesman:  No, there is no change in our security procedures for Baghdad.  I don’t have the latest figures, but roughly half our people are still in Iraq.

Question:  What was the outcome of the meeting the Secretary-General had with Denktash and his Greek counterpart?

Spokesman:  We don’t have an outcome to announce.  And it wasn’t just with Mr. Denktash as I mentioned to you.  He met with the three leaders this morning.  They’re coming back tomorrow at 10:00 and we’ll see what happens then.  Yes, go ahead.

Question:  Has the Secretary-General received a draft report from Dr. Blix?

Spokesman:  Yes.  That report went to the 38^th floor yesterday and left the 38^th floor last night.  So, it’s now in translation.

Question:  What is the 38^th floor?

Spokesman:  That’s the Secretary-General’s staff.  The Secretary-General is away.  The report was reviewed by his staff and was sent on to translation, where it is now.  The current expectation, I don’t know if it will hold up, but the current expectation is it would come out of translation and be distributed to Council members by fax some time on Sunday, and would come out here as a document on Monday.

Okay, Richard is going to have a quick announcement and then we’ll go to Mr. Dhanapala and Mr. Barber.

Spokesman for the General Assembly President

Good afternoon.

General Assembly President (Jan) Kavan will be arriving in Sydney this weekend at the start of an official visit to Australia and Japan over the next two weeks.  During his week-long visit to Australia, he will meet with Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and he will meet with United Nations officials at the United Nations Centre in Sydney.  He is also giving a number of keynote lectures, including at the University of New South Wales, on the role of the General Assembly in maintaining peace and security, and at the National Europe Centre of the Australian National University, on the role of the United Nations in promoting human rights.

President Kavan will also participate in Melbourne in a round table on nationalism and internationalism.  President Kavan then travels to Tokyo for an official visit to Japan between 9 and 12 March, during which he will meet with Prime Minister Koizumi, Foreign Minister Kawaguchi and other officials.  He will participate in a symposium at the United Nations University (UNU) on conflicts in Africa and meet with Vice-Rector (Ramesh) Thakur of the UNU and representatives of other United Nations agencies.  He will also make a courtesy visit to Hiroshima and meet with officials of that city.

I will make available texts of President Kavan’s addresses closer to delivery.

Any questions?

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