This morning, the Secretary-General held a meeting at breakfast in Washington, D.C., with members of the United States House Foreign Affairs Committee, led by Chairman, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and ranking member, Representative Russ Carnahan. He discussed the situation in Côte d’Ivoire, Libya and other trouble spots and told the Committee that the United Nations does each day what no country can do alone.
In progress at UNHQ
Noon Briefings
The Security Council is holding a high-level debate on Haiti today, chaired by the President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos Calderón. At that meeting, the Secretary-General said that he was encouraged that the second round of polling was peaceful and urged the next Government to build on President Préval’s legacy of political tolerance and respect for human rights.
The UN mission in Côte d’Ivoire started an operation yesterday aimed at protecting civilians after forces loyal to Laurent Gbagbo have intensified and escalated their use of heavy weapons against the civilian population in Abidjan. As the Secretary-General explained, in accordance with Security Council resolution 1975 (2011), he instructed the mission to take the necessary measures to prevent the use of heavy weapons against the civilian population, with the support of the French forces.
A UN aircraft crashed at 1300 hours GMT today on landing in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There were 29 passengers plus the air crew on board the aircraft, which originated from Kisangani. A crisis task force set up by MONUSCO, the Mission there, is working at the crash site and there are no exact figures on casualties at this point.
The operations centre of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) in Mazar-i-Sharif has been attacked today following a demonstration, with several staff killed. Briefed on the incident, the Secretary-General called it “outrageous and cowardly” and condemned it in the strongest terms.
The Secretary-General is in Nairobi on the first full day of his visit to Kenya. This morning, he launched his report on HIV/AIDS ahead of the high-level meeting on the topic at the General Assembly in June.
The Secretary-General will open the fifth meeting of the Global Colloquium of University Presidents next Monday, at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The meeting is dedicated to the theme of “Empowering Women to Change the World: What Universities and the UN Can Do”.
The Secretary-General addressed the international conference on Libya today in London, saying that, although decisive and swift action by the international community saved thousands of lives, air operations, alone, will not resolve the crisis, nor will it bring about a political solution that meets the aspirations of the Libyan people.
The Secretary-General will speak to the General Assembly this afternoon in an informal plenary of to discuss, among other things, his recent travels to Egypt and Tunisia, and his diplomatic efforts concerning Libya. He will say that Libya has not taken any steps to fulfil their obligations under resolutions 1970 (2011) and 1973 (2011).
The Secretary-General convened a high-level meeting this morning of senior officials of UN agencies, funds and programmes to take stock of the international response to the latest developments resulting from the situation at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which has given rise to calls to reassess the international emergency response framework and the nuclear safety regime. The Secretary-General supports these calls.