ACTIVITIES OF SECRETARY-GENERAL IN SWEDEN, 29-31 JANUARY
Secretary-General Kofi Annan departed Switzerland on Monday afternoon, 29 January, for a two-day visit to Stockholm, Sweden.
Upon arrival late that afternoon, the Secretary-General met with Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt of Belgium and Louis Michel, Belgium's Vice Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, on the latter's recently concluded visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the region.
On Monday evening the Secretary-General delivered the keynote speech at Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson's dinner for the Stockholm International Forum on Combating Intolerance.
In his speech, the Secretary-General emphasized the importance of teaching tolerance to the young and the need for the European Union not to lose sight of the duty enshrined in international treaties to protect refugees and asylum seekers (see Press Release SG/SM/7693). Among other speakers at the Stockholm Forum were Mary Robinson, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
On Tuesday, 30 January, the Secretary-General met with Sweden's Prime Minister Goran Persson and Foreign Minister Anna Lindh. They discussed the Middle East, United Nations reform, crisis spots in Africa, development and humanitarian issues.
At a press encounter following the meeting with the Prime Minister, the Secretary-General appealed to the international community to give generous and prompt assistance to the victims of the earthquake in India. He said the international community had an obligation to provide all the assistance that it could.
On the Middle East, he told reporters that he was encouraged by the progress in the recent talks and that he and the Swedish Prime Minister had discussed this and were working closely with the parties. "I hope that as soon as the elections are over they could go back to continue their work", he said. He continued to follow the situation in the Middle East throughout the day, staying in close touch with the Israelis, the Palestinians and others concerning the possibility of a summit meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.
A meeting and a subsequent lunch with Foreign Minister Anna Lindh covered a wide range of issues, including relations between the European Union and the
United Nations, the situation in the Balkans and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
On Wednesday morning, 31 January, the Secretary-General had a working breakfast with Javier Solana, the European Union's High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy. They discussed United Nations-European Union relations, and specifically the situations in the Middle East and the Presevo Valley in southern Serbia.
Later that day he left Stockholm for New York, following a 16-day trip that had taken him from Cameroon to China, Japan, Switzerland and Sweden.