Press encounter with Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh and EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, (unofficial transcript)

Anna Lindh: We have invited Secretary-General Kofi Annan to a dinner we'll have now with the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the European Union. We are very pleased to see you here discussing with the European Union how we can cooperate as we are both trying to work for peace and development and how we then can strengthen and how the EU can help to strengthen also the UN and how we can work together.

We will discuss both crisis management, conflict prevention, Middle East and I think some other issues as well tonight. We wish you warmly welcome here.

SG: Thank you very much, Minister. I am extremely happy to be here and to be joining you and the other Ministers to discuss UN-EU cooperation. It is already very good, but good things give in to better. And we are determined to move ahead and make it very effective. And as the Minister has said, we will tackle these issues and crisis force and I hope, if time permits, I would also want to be able to discuss the fight against HIV/AIDS, the new global approach and the global fund, which I believe we need to be able to tackle that scourge that is causing so many problems around the world. For the moment, Africa is the hardest hit, but it is a global problem. It is spreading in Asia, in Eastern Europe, in the Caribbean and some Central American countries. So we do have work to do. Thank you very much.

Q: Pour Monsieur Solana, comment vous appliquez les resultats du rapport Mitchell et pour M. Annan, est-ce que vous etes pour une protection internationale pour les Palestinians?

J. Solana: Apres Monsieur Annan!

SG: I think the Mitchell Report is an excellent report and I'm happy that Javier Solana who is here with us also served on that panel. I think it is an important document, which gives us some very constructive and helpful ideas, which I hope the parties will take advantage of an work with the international community to help find an end to this tragedy, at least to stop the killing and find some ways of easing the economic pain of the Palestinian people and eventually get the two to the table.

J. Solana: I have nothing to add because the Secretary has explained perfectly what is the aim of the report and how to apply it. What I'd like to say is that we would like to use the report as a paper, a document, and together with the Egyptian and the Jordanian document, non-paper, could move the process forward and stop the cycle of violence, in particular now, these days, today, when really the situation is so bad and in particular now that the Israelis are doing something beyond which is proportional to my mind.

Q: Do you think that the EU military involvement is a good thing for the United Nations?

SG: Yes, I would hope that we will be able to continue to work with EU Member States. Don't forget that we have several working with us in Africa today, in Eritrea/Ethiopia. And we have them in other operations, in the Middle East, in South Lebanon on the border, in Syria, in Jerusalem, and we have EU military observers in other operations. And I believe that now that the EU is creating this crisis group we are going to even be able to work closer together. Thank you very much.

Anna Lindh: And our aim for tonight is also of course to discuss how will we be able to really use the EU military also to the benefit of the UN and we would be able to learn more about peacekeeping as that is the UN priority and speciality. *****