Press Conference

Forging greater ties between the United Nations and the League of Arab States to address Middle East turmoil and working closely with their new Joint Special Representative on the crisis in Syria would be among the top priorities of the Security Council in September, the Permanent Representative of Germany, whose delegation holds the Council’s rotating presidency for this month, said today.

A “neutral international force” under the auspices of a strengthened United Nations peacekeeping mission was needed to police the border between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the latter’s Foreign Minister said at a Headquarters press conference today, as he accused the neighbouring State of providing assistance to a “terrorist” organization in his country.

Syrian officials should defect as quickly as possible in order to separate themselves from the Assad regime, Laurent Fabius, Foreign Minister of France, and William Hague, Foreign Minister of the United Kingdom, said today at a Headquarters press conference.

Authorized transfers of small arms and light weapons, their parts and accessories now totalled at least $8.5 billion, or more than double the previous estimate in 2006, with ammunition accounting for half that amount, correspondents heard at a Headquarters press conference today.

The end of the United Nations observer mission in Syria would not significantly impact humanitarian activities there, but more generous funding support was needed, the Organization’s top humanitarian affairs official said at a Headquarters new conference today.

With “military logic winning the day” in Syria’s 16-month-old conflict and the Security Council deadlocked over how to address it, the 15-member body would likely cancel the United Nations observer mission to that country and seek consensus on a new resolution focused on humanitarian aid for the 3 million Syrians in need of emergency relief, the representative of France, which hold’s the Council’s rotating presidency for this month, said this afternoon.

Following is a transcript of UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson’s press conference held in New York, 19 July:

For humanitarian assistance to be effective, disaster prevention and preparedness needed to be incorporated into international responses to humanitarian needs, stated Lydia Poole, Programme Leader of Global Humanitarian Assistance, at the launch today of the 2012 Global Humanitarian Assistance Report at a Headquarters press conference.

Saturday’s elections in Libya, the country’s first free vote in more than four decades, were an “extraordinary achievement”, but they also highlighted some of the tough challenges ahead, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative said at Headquarters today.

Despite a perceived lack of concrete commitments, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development — Rio+20 — brought forward an international consensus on the way ahead, a panel of national, civil society and United Nations officials agreed at a Headquarters press conference today.