Press Conference

The sixty-fourth session of the General Assembly appeared to be off to a strong start as the 192-member body had adopted its agenda –- without reservations –- in less than an hour, newly installed Assembly President Ali Abdussalam Treki (Libya) said at Headquarters today.

Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Karen Koning AbuZayd, today announced a week-long series of events in New York to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the Agency’s creation, which would culminate with an “UNRWA @ 60” ministerial-level event on 24 September.

Following is a transcript of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s press conference held in New York today, 17 September:

Ongoing peace talks between Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders were progressing well, and while areas of divergence remained, there was cautious optimism that an agreement could be reached, the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Cyprus, Alexander Downer, said today.

At a Headquarters press conference today, to announce the annual Treaty Event taking place at Headquarters from 23 to 25 and 28 to 29 September on the margins of the high-level segment of the General Assembly’s general debate, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and Legal Counsel, Patricia O’Brien, said the Optional Protocol to the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights would be a highlight of the wide range of featured treaties.

“The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are more than a set of targets – they are a solemn promise to the world’s poorest and most vulnerable,” United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro said today at a Headquarters press briefing to launch the 2009 report of the MDG Gap Task Force.

There was evidence indicating Israel had committed serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law during the Gaza conflict and actions amounting to war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity, it was reported today by the United Nations fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict, upon the release of the mission’s official report and recommendations.

Noting that Member States had lauded the United Nations’ recently announced plan to chart a new, improved course for peacekeeping, Alain Le Roy, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, said this afternoon that it was vital that all peacekeeping actors work in the coming weeks and months to ensure those operations were robust and that they adequately protected civilians.

There was a marked discrepancy between the global demand for democratic governance and its supply, Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, said at a Headquarters press conference this morning to launch a new global poll on political tolerance.

Lynn B. Pascoe, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, outlined, at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon, a wide range of political issues confronting his Department on the eve of the opening of the sixty-fourth session of the General Assembly tomorrow.