HIGHLIGHTS OF PRESS BRIEFING BY BRENDEN VARMA, SPOKESPERSON FOR GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT MIROSLAV LAJČÁK

United Nations Headquarters, New York

11 September 2018

The High-Level Meeting on the Fight to End Tuberculosis will be held on 26 September. It will be the first such meeting dedicated to tuberculosis, which kills more people across the globe than any other infectious disease.
Following consultations among delegations, the President has transmitted the draft of the meeting’s outcome document – a political declaration – to Member States.
The text will remain under silence procedure until this Friday.

As this session of the General Assembly is drawing to a close, the President’s office has published two books.
The first is entitled “Striving for peace during the seventy-second session of the United Nations General Assembly.” It focuses on the High-Level Meeting on Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace, which was held last April, and which was one of the President’s major events for the year.
The book gathers together in one place the reports, resolutions, speeches and summaries related to the meeting – and to peacebuilding and sustaining peace in general.
The second book is called “Morning Dialogues: A Conversation.” It highlights the Morning Dialogues, which were a new initiative by the President this session.
These informal discussions among Ambassadors on issues of concern to the United Nations aimed to create a space for real communication and listening.

The President will hold his end-of-session press conference at United Nations Headquarters – on Thursday at 11:00 a.m.
Also on Thursday, he would like to invite all United Nations correspondents to a reception at 5:30 p.m. in the Express Bar.

Asked whether the President had a reaction to the United States’ decision to close the office of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Washington, DC, the Spokesperson replied that the President did not have a position on that bilateral matter.