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.

Good afternoon.  We’re going to start with a statement attributable to the Spokesman on Iran.

**Iran

The Secretary-General has learned with great concern of the loss of lives and the severe injuries of many bystanders as a result of a string of bomb explosions in Teheran and other cities in Iran.  He reiterates that no cause can justify the use of violence and the indiscriminate targeting of innocent civilians.  He expresses his condolences to the families of the bereaved and the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

**Activities of Secretary-General

The Secretary-General arrived in Paris this morning.  Shortly after his arrival, he met with his Special Envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, who briefed him on his meeting with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, which took place in Damascus on Sunday.

The Secretary-General issued a statement from Paris saying that Roed-Larsen had told him that his discussion with the Syrian President was constructive and helpful.  The Secretary-General was encouraged by Mr. Roed-Larsen’s report, he said, and he will continue to work together with President Al-Assad, the Syrian Government and other parties for the full implementation of Security Council resolution 1559.

Later today, the Secretary-General will have a meeting with the newly appointed Foreign Minster of France, Philippe Douste-Blazy.

Tomorrow, the Secretary-General will deliver an address to a meeting hosted by President Jacques Chirac of France and the Office of the Global Compact, on business contributions to the Millennium Development Goals.  The speech is available under embargo.

Also tomorrow, the Secretary-General will hold separate bilateral meetings with President Chirac and Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom, and then he will have a luncheon meeting with both men.

**General Assembly

Today, the President for the sixtieth session of the General Assembly, Ambassador Jan Eliasson of Sweden, was elected this morning, and he spoke to you in this room a short time ago.

**Security Council

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia will have to conduct trials in 2009, and trials will most likely continue until the end of that year.  That was the estimate that the Tribunal’s President, Judge Theodor Meron, gave the Security Council at its open meeting on the work of the two Tribunals this morning.

Judge Meron and Tribunal Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte emphasized the importance of arresting the most notorious fugitives indicted by the Tribunal, including Ratko Mladic, Radovan Karadzic and Ante Gotovina.

Judge Erik Mose, the President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, said there had been steady progress in that Tribunal’s work, with trials scheduled to be completed by the end of 2008.

We have the statement made by the Tribunal officials available upstairs.

**Sudan

A number of security-related incidents have been reported during the weekend in Darfur, Sudan, including attacks on and looting of humanitarian and commercial trucks, a tribal militia attack on a village, and an alleged rape of four girls.

The Secretary-General’s Deputy Special Representative for Humanitarian Affairs and Development, Manuel Aranda Da Silva, will visit Kalma camp in South Darfur on Wednesday of next week, along with Sudan’s Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister.

They will assess the situation in the camp, which is the largest camp for internally displaced people in Darfur, with a population of approximately 140,000.  Citing banditry and security incidents, the Sudanese Government has imposed a blockade on the camp, whereby no commercial traffic to the camp is allowed, and displaced persons cannot travel in Nyala.

Meanwhile, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Sudan, Jan Pronk, will head the United Nations and partners team during the Joint Implementation Mechanism visit to West Darfur, scheduled to take place on 15 and 16 of this month.  The visit aims at assessing the progress made almost a year after the signing of the Joint Communiqué between the Secretary-General and the Sudanese Government.

**Iraq

The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Iraq, Ashraf Qazi, today congratulated Masoud Barzani on his inauguration as President of the Kurdistan Regional Government.  He reiterated his assurance that the United Nations will work to establish an effective, transparent and fair relationship between the Kurdistan authorities and the Government in Baghdad.

On Saturday, Qazi welcomed the role that the Secretary-General of the Iraqi Islamic Party, Mohsen Abdel Hamid, is playing along with other Sunni political leaders in supporting the constitutional process.

The recent discussions between the two men focused on the efforts under way to enable groups and parties that were not represented in the Transitional National Assembly to participate in the drafting of the constitution, and participate in the subsequent referendum and elections scheduled for October and December this year.

**United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF)

The Secretary-General says that the situation in the Israel-Syria sector has remained generally quiet, in his latest report to the Security Council on the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force on the Golan Heights.

Nevertheless, he writes, the situation in the Middle East is very tense and likely to remain so, unless and until a comprehensive settlement covering all aspects of the Middle East problem can be reached.

Under the prevailing circumstances, he considers the continued presence of the United Nations force in the area to be essential, and recommends that the Council extend its mandate for a further six months, until the end of December.

**Afghanistan

The United Nations Mission in Afghanistan today expressed its relief and pleasure at the release late last week of a staff member of the non-governmental organization CARE, Clementina Cantoni.

The United Nations Mission welcomed her release and thanked the Afghan authorities for their role in it.  It also expressed its gratitude to the Afghan people, who expressed their clear outrage at her kidnapping and offered wide-scale public support for her safe release.

We have more details in today’s briefing notes from Kabul.

**Bolivia

The Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy to Bolivia, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, José Antonio Ocampo, will be arriving in that country this afternoon.

Ocampo is going to Bolivia after the new President renewed the invitation from former President Carlos Mesa.  The goal of his mission will be to assess how the United Nations can be helpful to Bolivia as it tackles the political transition and economic issues.

Ocampo will meet with a broad spectrum of actors in order to assess the situation and report back to the Secretary-General.

**Report on Liberia Sanctions

A new report by the Secretary-General on Liberia is out today.  It tracks implementation of the peace agreement and the Government’s steps to legitimize the diamond and timber industries.

The Secretary-General hopes that the peace process will succeed now that disarmament is complete and all armed factions have been dissolved.

But he warns that potential sources of instability continue to threaten the transitional process.  These include delays in restructuring Liberia’s armed forces, and in helping ex-fighters find other employment.

The report also notes that the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) lacks the mandate and the capacity to ensure that diamonds aren’t being used to fuel the conflict, and recommends that the Security Council consider enabling the mission to help the Government in providing security to diamond- and timber-producing areas.

There is a copy of the report on the web, but we also have copies in our Office.

**Deputy Secretary-General

The Deputy Secretary-General, Louise Fréchette, is due to arrive in Doha, Qatar, tomorrow evening, to address the opening of the South-South Summit, which begins the following day.  The Deputy Secretary-General will also hold a number of bilateral meetings in the margins of the Summit.

**International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

The Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) convened in Vienna today and, by consensus, appointed Mohamed ElBaradei to a third term as the Director-General of the Agency.

The Board of Governors also intends during its session to discuss the Safeguards Implementation Report for 2004, and a report by the Director-General on the implementation of safeguards in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

**International Media Seminar

Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, Shashi Tharoor, in Cairo today, read the Secretary-General’s message to a two-day International Media Seminar on Peace in the Middle East.  The Secretary-General urged Palestinians to do more to prevent acts of violence and terror, and also stressed the need to avoid unilateral actions, such as the Israeli Barrier and continued settlement expansion that could prejudge the resolution of the final status issues or the implementation of United Nations resolutions.

We have the full text of that statement upstairs.

**World Chronicle Programme

The Information Department asked me to tell you about World Chronicle programme number 976, hosted by Tony Jenkins, which will be shown today on in-house television channels 3 or 31 at 3:30 p.m.  The guest is Dr. Mark Young, a Senior Health Adviser with United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the subject in international efforts to roll back malaria, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

Richard is first off the mark with a question.  Richard.

**Questions and Answers

Question:  What happened with the verification team for Lebanon?  When did they go back?  What is the story?

Spokesman:  The verification team is in the process of being deployed.  It is the same three-member team as was there before.  They are proceeding to Beirut from different locations.

Question:  How long will their mission be?

Spokesman:  I don’t think they have a time limit.

Question:  Does it represent a failure to recognize the possibility that Syria might not comply in that it would seem very definitive that there was no need, in the last report, for the verification team to go back, or linger, and now there was a change of heart?

Spokesman:  No, I think what we are reacting to is reports that there could be security elements from Syria still in Lebanon.  Our responsibility, the Secretary-General’s responsibility, is to verify the complete withdrawal.  That is the reason for sending the team back.  Of course, Mr. Terje Roed-Larsen had an extensive meeting with President Bashar Al-Assad on Sunday, and before you came in, I mentioned the elements of the statement that was issued from Paris.

Question:  On Iraq, the International Crisis Group and other groups are saying that the constitutional process, for which now a deadline is set for 15 August, should not be hastened.  In that reference, Mr. Qazi also met with the former Prime Minister Allawi.  Can you tell me whether any consideration is being given to give this process a little bit more time?

Spokesman:  I don’t have any guidance on that point.  I would have to check for you, but I am not aware of that.  I would have to check with Baghdad.  [He later added that that would be a decision for the Transitional Governments to make.]

Question:  There was a report on your website that Mr. Qazi met with Mr. Allawi about the bad situation as it exists in Iraq, and that work should be done about this constitutional process.

Spokesman:  As I say, I have no information regarding any slippage on the timetable for the Constitution, but we can check with the Mission for you after the briefing.

Question:  Do you have any reaction on the New York Times report on the Congressional Panel that is supposed to submit its findings on Wednesday?

Spokesman:  No, we very much look forward to seeing the issuance of that report.  Our reform efforts are well under way and we are continuing to pursue them actively, but at the same time, we would like to see what this group, representing a pretty wide spectrum of political opinion in the United States, has to recommend.

Question:  About the verification team again:  when did you say they are arriving in Lebanon?

Spokesman:  We don’t have a specific date, because the three members are coming from three separate locations.  They will be arriving separately, and they are on their way.

Question:  Will the verification team be able to go to Palestinian refugee camps to assess if there are any agents?

Spokesman:  I don’t have any details on their mandate at this time.

Question:  There is a technical meeting in Paris between the French Ambassador in Beirut, the American Ambassador, the United Nations Ambassador, the World Bank and the Secretary-General.  Do you have anything about this meeting?

Spokesman:  No, there is nothing of that sort that appears on the Secretary-General’s programme.  We were in touch several times this morning with the Spokesman from my office who is with the Secretary-General.  He made no mention of any additions to the programme.  The Secretary-General’s programme of today does not include a meeting with the people you just mentioned.

Question:  You mentioned talks between Roed-Larsen and President Bashar Al-Assad.  Can you be more specific about the discussions?

Spokesman:  I cannot.  Those were tête-à-tête discussions for more than two hours, after which Mr. Larsen went to Paris to brief the Secretary-General.  All we had to say about them is in the statement that we issued from Paris this morning.

Question:  When does the Secretary-General intend to submit his report on Cyprus to the Security Council?

Spokesman:  I’ll have to check on that for you.  I honestly don’t know.  We can probably find out after the briefing for you.

[It was later announced that Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Kieran Prendergast would brief the Security Council on Cyprus on 22 June.]

Question:  Was there a message sent by President Bashar Al-Assad through the Special Envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, on the Special International Commission, including the Syrian and the Lebanese, regarding border demarcation between Deiralasha and Sh’ebaa Farm.  Did they discuss this issue?

Spokesman:  We have no details to give you on the discussions between Mr. Roed-Larsen and the Syrian President apart from what we said in the statement issued from Paris.

Question:  Does the Secretary-General have further travel-plans after Paris?

Spokesman:  No.  He will be travelling again in this month, and we will follow the usual procedures for announcing those trips.  He returns from Paris tomorrow evening.  He will probably be in the office on Thursday.

Question:  Is James LeMoyne still working for the United Nations in South America, or was that a courtesy-call last week?

Spokesman:  He is not.  It was a farewell call that he paid on the Secretary-General.  He will not be replaced.  He just came to say goodbye.

Question:  Why isn’t he being replaced?

Spokesman:  The Government [of Colombia] does not see a reason for a good-offices mission by the United Nations at this time.

Question:  Do you have any comments on the third phase of the elections in Lebanon?

Spokesman:  No, I do not.

Thank you very much.

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