PRESS CONFERENCE BY SECURITY COUNCIL PRESIDENT

Press CONFERENCE by security council president

The Security Council President for the month of April, Gunter Pleuger (Germany), briefing correspondents on the Council’s schedule, said that the most politically sensitive discussion would concern the draft resolution on weapons of mass destruction, around which a “positive groundswell” was forming to evolve a Security Council text.

He said that the P-5 (permanent five Council members) had been working on the draft resolution for the past five or six months, and next Thursday would be the first round of informals.  Offers had already been made to different groups about briefing the General Assembly on parts of that text.

Another issue close to the heart was the public meeting planned for 15 April on the role of business in conflict prevention, peacekeeping and post-conflict peace-building.  The idea for the meeting originated during the German-led Security Council mission to Afghanistan last year.  It had seen that, in the third phase of crisis management, or peace-building, of vital importance was the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of former combatants.  So far, the Government had disarmed and demobilized 2,000 of 100,000 soldiers.

He stressed that the “DDR” process required jobs; yet, private business could not be forced to invest in post-conflict areas.  An environment should be created to lure private business into that area and to contribute to stabilizing social situations and providing the jobs to make it possible to demobilize and reintegrate combatants.  The Secretary-General would introduce the discussion.  The World Bank President would join him, as would a chief executive officer of an internationally operating company, the President of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and South Africa’s Ambassador, who chaired the ECOSOC committee dealing with African economic affairs.

The discussion would explore possible ways that international financial institutions, the United Nations system and private business could cooperate to create an environment conducive to business playing a constructive role in peace-building and crisis prevention, he said.  It had already been settled, more or less, that business would not play a negative role, such as by breaking sanctions or funding conflict in any way.  Rather, the meeting would explore how business could help to create a positive contribution to peace-building.

Besides those two discussions, he said the programme contained the “usual suspects”, or all of those crisis situations that the Council addressed on a regular basis.  This morning, members had discussed, under “other matters”, the situation in the Darfur region of the Sudan.  On 14 April, they planned to take up the situation in northern Uganda.  Those two “more or less forgotten” conflicts had taken a “very terrible turn”.

He noted that a peace process on the Sudan was under way in Kenya, and nobody wanted to disturb the possibility of bringing that to fruition.  At the same time, the Council could not turn its eyes away from what was going on in Darfur or turn its back on the terrible humanitarian situation in northern Uganda.  The Emergency Relief Coordinator, Jan Egeland, would brief the Council on both issues, which the Council was taking up for the first time in an effort to try to ease the personal suffering of those populations.

On Tuesday, the Secretariat would brief the Council on the results of the Afghanistan conference, just concluded in Berlin, he said.  That conference had surpassed expectations in terms of participation, political impetus for the political process, and the resources pledged.  He hoped the Council would welcome those results.  An open briefing on Iraq was scheduled for 16 April, in accordance with resolution 1511 which required the United States, on behalf of the coalition forces, to brief the Council.

He noted the open briefing, followed by consultations, on 23 April on the Middle East.  Terje Roed-Larsen would introduce that discussion.  Two meetings were planned on Cyprus, including for this afternoon, when the Council would hear a briefing by Alvaro de Soto on how he saw the results of negotiations over recent months.  Then, on 28 April, four days after the referenda, the Council would review results, as well as the future of the island.  There would also be a meeting on Kosovo, proposed only yesterday, in light of the new and very volatile and dangerous situation there.  It was a busy month ahead.

The purpose of the thematic discussion on the role of private business in peace-building was to better understand the conditions necessary for private investment and the subsequent job opportunities, he replied to a question.  That did not only pertain to the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Clearly, security was a prerequisite, indeed a key, for creating a good environment for business.

Replying to another question, he said he certainly would not initiate work on a further Iraq resolution; that would come from the occupying Powers, or the Coalition, and not from the presidency.  He would see whether there was a proposal for a new resolution, but, so far, he had no indication that a new text was imminent.

Concerning the draft on mass destruction weapons, he said that the fact that the permanent five members had discussed it for so long underscored the importance of that question and the fact that it entailed a lot of very difficult and complex problems.  The Americans were absolutely right to say there was a gap in international law pertaining to non-State actors.  So, either new international law should be created, either waiting for customary international law to develop, or by negotiating a treaty or convention.  Both took a long time, and everyone felt that there was an “imminent threat”, which had to be addressed and which could not wait for the usual way.

Clearly, he added, the “E-10”, or elected Council members, needed an opportunity to study the draft and refer it back to their capitals for a discussion with the competent authorities because the draft would ask Member States to develop a lot of new legislation, and so on.  That was the first major step towards having the Security Council legislate for the rest of the United Nations’ membership.  Also important was to give the other 167 members a chance to consider the resolution and contribute their views.

He said it was not enough to adopt a Security Council resolution with legitimacy and acceptance; also important was that it was implemented.

Asked how legislating outside the treaty process on that draft would be different from what was done in resolutions 1267 and 1373, he said that 1373 had been the first step.  As far as weapons of mass destruction were concerned, the Council would follow up in a more detailed way by asking for more steps to be taken concerning the system being created by the draft.

Another correspondent noted that two concerns were that the text did not mention disarmament and, while it potentially included the imposition of sanctions under Chapter VII, the P-5 would be immune to that by virtue of the veto.

The Ambassador said “that was a problem”, adding that some countries, including Germany, had submitted proposal on how to improve the text.  Close to Germany’s heart was the draft’s connection to disarmament.  That connection was easy –- weapons that did not exist could not be proliferated.  Non-proliferation should be seen in the context of disarmament and arms control, and the obligations under existing international law and instruments of disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation should not be undermined in any way.

Asked about Security Council reform, he said that Germany was willing to take over responsibility as a permanent member if reform came.  Discussions had been ongoing for the past 14 years and, so far, nothing had happened.  Now, the Secretary-General had put together a blue ribbon panel, and President Hunte of the General Assembly had also pushed his “strand” of reform.

He added that, when he had come to the United Nations 15 months ago, there were no dynamics whatsoever with regard to that reform.  That situation had changed, and changed dramatically.  There was a common sense of that reform being necessary.  Also, it had been, more or less, commonly acknowledged that the problems of institutional reform had to be addressed.

The panel’s basic approach had been to start by defining the new challenges to security and then ask if the right instruments were now in place to meet those challenges, he said.  Then, conclusions could be drawn about any deficiency in the instruments necessary for reform.  That approach went far beyond what had been done in the open-ended working group for the past 12 years.  Political reform and the question of changing international law were not the only things to be addressed.  It should also be asked whether the instruments under international law and in international organizations were in place.

Starting with the creation of the Counter-Terrorism Committee and now weapons of mass destruction, that Council would be needed more and more to do that kind of legislative work, he said.  The Council was also becoming more important in the management of international crises.  There were currently 15 peacekeeping operations under way, including seven which were very complex.  In the coming weeks and months, another five would be built.  That meant that 49,000 soldiers in the field in peacekeeping operations might double in the next year or so, up to 72,000 soldiers in the field.  That would probably double the cost of peacekeeping operations to more than $4.5 billion.  With that, went the addition of other resources.  “We are all fishing in the same pool”, he emphasized.

He said that, all of those increased tasks before the Council, taken together with the addition of legislative work, the rest of the membership in the General Assembly had to feel that the Council was acting on its behalf.  A different “political psychology” should also be involved in the Council, itself, namely that members were not there because of national capability or interest, but to pursue the interests of the international community.  That was not present right now.

A new political psychology should create two principles of reform:  first to ensure that the decisions of the Council and its requests for legislative changes had legitimacy and acceptance; and that “representativeness” created that acceptance and legitimacy, he said.  America knew that best –- no taxation without representation was very well known in that country.  For new permanent seats, Japan and Germany, among the Organization’s largest contributors, should be considered.  There was a good chance for such reform if the panel produced an expectedly good report to the Secretary-General.

Meanwhile, Germany had lived for 50 years without a permanent seat on the Security Council and it would not “go under” if that reform failed, he said.  But, that would be bad for the United Nations and the ability of the international community to act and react to challenges that would increasingly arise in the coming years.

Asked to comment on the letter of regret from Spain’s Ambassador Arias on the condemnation in the Madrid bombings, Mr. Pleuger said that had closed the case.

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