ACTIVITIES OF SECRETARY-GENERAL IN GERMANY 11-13 FEBRUARY

The Secretary-General arrived in Munich from London on Friday evening, 11 February.

On Saturday morning he had a breakfast meeting with the President of Germany, Dr. Horst Köhler.  The President affirmed his commitment to the 0.7 per cent of gross national product target for official development assistance.  Although Germany is currently at 0.28, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder had publicly announced Germany’s intention to reach 0.7 by the year 2015.  They also talked of African political and economic development, as well as United Nations reform.  In closing, the President offered his sympathy and support for the Secretary-General saying, “We know what we have in you.”

The Secretary-General then attended the opening of the 41st Munich Conference on Security Policy.  German Defence Minister Peter Struck delivered the opening address on behalf of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who was ill.  United States Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld then spoke and took questions.  At one point, he turned to the Secretary-General, said that he had just returned from Iraq, and commented that the work of United Nations electoral expert Carlos Valenzuela there was impressive.  The audience applauded.

After a brief exchange with members of the United Nations Association of Germany, the Secretary-General held a series of bilateral meetings in the margins of the Conference, starting with German Defence Minister Peter Struck.  The Secretary-General said that with the planning for deployment of the United Nations’s 19th peacekeeping operation in Sudan, the Organization was reaching the limits of its physical capacity.  He asked for any assistance that Germany might provide.  They also discussed Afghanistan, Kosovo, Sudan and the aftermath of the South-Asian tsunami.

His next meeting was with the Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who asked him how he saw things developing in Afghanistan.  The Secretary-General welcomed the expanded NATO presence in that country.  They went on to discuss political and narcotics issues there.  They then went on to Iraq, Kosovo, theMiddle East and NATO-United Nations relations.

On Saturday afternoon, he talked with the Chairwoman of the opposition CDU party, Angela Merkel, who asked him first about United Nations reform, including prospects for a German seat on an enlarged Security Council.  They also discussed the current and future role for the United Nations in Iraq’s transition and efforts to pacify the Darfur region of Sudan.

Then he met with the Deputy Foreign Minister of Romania, Teodor Baconschi.  Their agenda included Iraq, Kosovo, Georgia and United Nations reform.

After that, he saw Javier Solana, High Representative of the European Union for Common, Foreign and Security Policy, for a review of the situations in Iraq, Iran, the Middle East and Sudan.

That evening, he had a meeting with the Bavarian President and leader of the CSU party, Edmund Stoiber.  Mr. Stoiber asked the Secretary-General for his views on efforts to contain the nuclear programme of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.  In that connection, they also discussed Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and they touched on the situation in Iraq and United Nations reform as well.

The Secretary-General and Mr. Stoiber then went to Emperor’s Hall, where the Secretary-General was presented with the first “Peace through Dialogue” award at a dinner ceremony.  The Secretary-General told the more than 300 guests gathered there that he was honoured to receive the award, which he saw as an affirmation of the importance of the Office of the Secretary-General and of the United Nations itself.

“Like all my predecessors”, he said, “I have sought to use my office to build bridges between parties, wherever I believed an opportunity for the peaceful resolution of disputes might be found.”  Inevitably, he added, “my success rate in resolving disputes peacefully has been mixed.  That comes with the job description.”

In this work, he went on, “I have had to confront not only the doubts of others, but my own as well.  But I have persisted, because by precedent, by principle, by Charter and by duty, I am bound to exhaust peaceful means to further international peace and security.”  (See press release SG/SM/9719.)

On Sunday morning, the Secretary-General addressed the 41st Munich Conference on Security Policy, pointing to the advances in global security evidenced by the Sudan peace agreement, the Palestinian-Israeli ceasefire and the elections in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“I have come here today”, he said, “to call on Europe and America to do something more this year; to think ahead and to help plant the seeds of long-term global collective security”.  The message is simple, he went on:  “our global security environment has been transformed, and our global collective security system, including the United Nations, must be transformed too.”

“Let us banish from our minds the thought that some threats affect only some of us”, he said.  “We all share responsibility for each other’s security.  Indeed in strengthening the security of others, we protect the security of our own.”

He laid out a four-part formula to give effect to this vision:  1) strengthen our collective defences; 2) when prevention fails, consider the use of force; 3) equip ourselves to build lasting peace in war-torn lands and 4) our goals should be a world of peaceful and capable states….  We must take democratisation, development and human rights seriously.

If Member States act now, he concluded, we will have a more efficient, more effective and more equitable collective security system.  “And if you keep in mind the people who are losing their lives today in Sudan and elsewhere”, he said, “that would be a precious gift to humanity.”

On the subject of Sudan he said, “People are dying every single day, while we fail to protect them.  Additional measures are urgently required.  Those organisations with real capacity -- and NATO, as well as the EU are well represented in this room -- must give serious consideration to what, in practical terms, they can do to help end this tragedy.”  (See SG/SM/9717.)

He then took a number of questions from the audience.

In the margins of the Conference, the Secretary-General met the German Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, who had just returned from visiting the tsunami-devastated province of Aceh in Indonesia.  The Secretary-General thanked the German people for their generosity in responding to the crisis in South Asia.  The Foreign Minister commented that the United Nations had played a crucial role in the relief effort, demonstrating once again its indispensability.  They also discussed Israeli-Palestinian issues, post-election Iraq, the Iranian nuclear issue and Afghanistan.

In the afternoon, the Secretary-General went to Town Hall to sign the Golden Book of the city of Munich.  He was welcomed by the Lord Mayor, Christian Ude.  He thanked the Mayor for the warm reception and presented him in turn with two books of his own -- the report of the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change and the other on the UN Millennium Project.  Both reports, he said would provide a focus of discussion and debate in the months leading up to the September Summit, which he hoped would take far-reaching measures to adapt and renew the United Nations.  “I believe that historic, fundamental progress is possible”, he said.  “But it will depend on the will of governments, and on the engagement of civil society and individual citizens, such as all of you.”

The Secretary-General later departed Munich for New York, where he arrived on Sunday evening.