ACTIVITIES OF SECRETARY-GENERAL IN ALGERIA, 22 - 23 MARCH
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan arrived in Algiers on Tuesday afternoon, 22 March, to attend the sixtieth Summit of the League of Arab States.
On Tuesday evening, he held a number of bilateral meetings, including with President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, President Bashar al Assad of Syria and President Omer Hassan Al-Bashir of the Sudan.
President Mubarak briefed the Secretary-General on the recent discussions amongst Palestinian factions which took place the previous week in Cairo, and also briefed on his recent contacts with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel.
They also discussed the implementation of resolution 1559, with President Mubarak saying that he was following the situation closely and doing everything he could to assist. The Secretary-General also discussed the situation in Darfur and the President’s recent announcement to allow multiple candidates in Egyptian presidential elections.
Following his back-to-back meetings with the Syrian and Sudanese Presidents, the Secretary-General spoke to reporters.
On the Sudan, the Secretary-General said he stressed to President Omer Al-Bashir the need for a political agreement between the Sudanese Government and Darfur rebels, and security for people to go back to their villages there.
The Secretary-General told reporters he had a very constructive meeting with Syrian President Al-Assad who, he said, was working out a timetable for Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, and would withdraw troops and security services completely into Syria. He added that he would send his Special Envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, to the region in the first week of April, and expected him to come back with a well-defined and credible timetable.
On Wednesday morning, the Secretary-General addressed the closing session of the Arab League Summit.
Mr. Annan told participants that Arab men and women are growing more determined to make their diverse voices heard. In recent months, he noted, Iraqis, Palestinians and Lebanese had shown a strong appetite for democratic solutions to their problems.
He said that democracy is the best means to solve problems, promote peace, nurture development and create inclusive and cohesive societies. He added that the United Nations would continue working with Arab countries to achieve these objectives.
On Lebanon, the Secretary-General said that he expected to release within the next few days the report of the fact-finding commission he had established in the wake of the killing of former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, and that he believed “a comprehensive investigation may well also be necessary”.
He said the United Nations is also committed to helping Iraq in its transition, and that it would continue to press for full Israeli and Palestinian implementation of their Road Map obligations. (See Press Release SG/SM/9776 of 23 March.)
Prior to the start of the Summit’s closing session, the Secretary-General spoke to Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, with whom he discussed Western Sahara, resolution 1559 and terrorism. President Bouteflika also pledged his support for the Secretary-General’s reform efforts.
The Secretary-General also met with Arab League Secretary-General Amre Moussa. He briefed the head of the Arab League on the latest developments regarding resolution 1559 and the Fitzgerald report on the death of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. The two also discussed the United Nations reform process.
On the margins of the Summit, the Secretary-General held a number of tête-à-tête meetings with Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hamoud and Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawer.
He also held longer meetings with King Mohammed VI of Morocco, with whom he discussed the situation in Western Sahara, as well as the Secretary-General’s recently published report on United Nations reform -- “In Larger Freedom”. The Secretary-General also met with Libyan leader Muammar Al-Qadhafi.
The Secretary-General was asked by a journalist before he left Algiers why there may be a need for another inquiry into Mr. Hariri’s death, and responded that, often, in these cases, one would want a broader investigation, more than the work of the fact-finding team he had sent.
The Secretary-General returned to New York later that day.