HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NOON BRIEFING
BY MICHELE MONTAS
SPOKESPERSON FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL BAN KI-MOON
U.N. HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK
Monday,
March 5, 2007
BAN KI-MOON
WELCOMES SIGNING OF COTE D'IVOIRE PEACE ACCORD
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
welcomes the
successful conclusion of the dialogue on the Ivorian peace process and the
signing of an agreement between President Laurent Gbagbo and Guillaume Soro in
Ouagadougou on 4 March 2007, under the facilitation of the Chairman of the
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), President Blaise Compaoré.
The Secretary-General commends President Compaoré for his
effective facilitation role and assures him and the Ivorian leaders of the
commitment and readiness of the United Nations to assist in the implementation
of the agreement.
The Secretary-General notes that the Ouagadougou
agreement builds upon Security Council
resolution 1721 (2006) and previous peace agreements with the aim of
resolving the protracted political stalemate.
The Secretary-General is especially pleased to note that
the agreement addresses the key issues that had blocked progress on
identification of the population, disarmament, reform and restructuring of the
armed forces, restoration of State authority throughout the country,
reunification of the country and the preparation of the voters list, in order
to ensure credible, free and fair elections.
The Secretary-General stresses that this agreement was
drawn up by the Ivorian leaders themselves, which places on them a special
responsibility to implement it in full and in good faith.
He looks forward to further discussions with President
Compaoré and the Ivorian leaders on details of the provisions of the agreement
and the role the United Nations is expected to play.
DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL URGES FIGHT
AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING
Deputy
Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro spoke this morning at the
International Conference on Trafficking in Women and Girls, which the UN
Office on Drugs and Crime helped to organize.
She said that trafficking respects no borders and the
response therefore requires cross-border cooperation. She also encouraged
parties to join the Global Initiative to fight Human Trafficking and Modern
Slavery, which is being launched by the UN this year in Vienna.
MANHUNT
CONTINUES IN TIMOR-LESTE
The UN Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT)
reports that on Saturday that U.N. police
and International Security Forces (ISF) initiated an operation in Same,
targeting the fugitive Maj. Reinado and his supporters.
The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for
Timor-Leste, Atul Khare, in a press conference yesterday
said that UNMIT, in consultation with the
Government of Timor-Leste and the ISF has considered all possible options to
achieve Reinado’s surrender to justice.
UNMIT expresses regrets that the efforts to ensure a
peaceful judicial path have not been successful, stressing that it is
Reinado’s disregard for the laws of Timor Leste and the wellbeing of its
population that have brought us to this point.
U.N. SPECIAL ENVOY FOR DARFUR TO BRIEF
THE SECURITY COUNCIL
There are no meetings or consultations of the Security
Council planned for today.
The Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Darfur, Jan
Eliasson, will be briefing the Security Council in consultations tomorrow
morning and then speak to reporters afterwards.
SPECIAL ENVOY
GAMBARI MEETS WITH SAUDI ARABIA KING
Ibrahim Gambari, who traveled to Saudi Arabia over the
weekend as a Special Envoy of the Secretary-General, had an audience in Riyadh
on Sunday with King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud.
Gambari delivered a message from the Secretary-General.
Their discussion focused on a range of regional issues, as well as on Saudi
Arabia’s relations with the UN.
Gambari has since spoken with the Secretary-General by
phone and will be able to fully brief him on all of his discussions upon his
return to New York. While in Saudi Arabia he will continue contacts with
senior government officials and will travel to Jeddah later in the week to
meet with the Secretary-General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
U.N. ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY BOARD MEETS IN
VIENNA
The Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) met earlier today in Vienna
and considered, among other issues, the status of implementation of safeguards
in both Iran and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
In his
address
to the Board, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said that the
situation in Iran remains a stalemate. He said that although the Agency has
verified the non-diversion of Iran’s declared nuclear material, Iran’s lack of
transparency continued to hinder the Agency’s ability to reconstruct the full
history of the country’s nuclear programme and some of its components.
On the DPRK, ElBaradei told the Board that he had been
invited by the Government to visit the country in the wake of the 13 February
Beijing agreement at the Six-Party Talks.
U.N. SPECIAL REP FOR CHILDREN IN ARMED
CONFLICT IN DR CONGO
The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for
Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, is currently in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The objective of her mission is to work towards ensuring
greater protection for children in the immediate post-conflict phase and peace
consolidation process.
UNICEF CHIEF SPEAKS U.N. COMMISSION ON
STATUS OF WOMEN
UNICEF head Ann
Veneman today addressed the 51st Session of the UN Commission on the Status of
Women, which is meeting here at Headquarters. She said that violence against
women and girls is one of the most extreme forms of inequality.
She also said that education is key to addressing
discrimination and violence against girls and to helping achieve the
Millennium Development Goals. Educated girls are better equipped to protect
themselves against life-threatening diseases and more likely to give birth to
healthy babies, she said.
UNESCO IN NEPAL LAUNCHES HIV/AIDS
EDUCATION TOOLKIT
The UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
in Nepal
announced today that it has launched a program toolkit for Ministries of
Education on HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention.
The HIV and AIDS situation in Nepal is categorized as a
concentrated epidemic, spreading rapidly amongst its most-at-risk groups, and
by adapting an advocacy toolkit to the Nepali context, UNESCO hopes the
toolkit can be used as additional efforts to limit the spread of HIV.
According to UNESCO, there are 8,500 new HIV infections
everyday in the world and in 2005 alone, nearly 3 million people died from
AIDS-related causes, contributing to the more than 20 million deaths since the
first AIDS diagnosis in 1981.
OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS
SUSPENSION OF UNDP OPERATIONS IN DPRK WILL NOT AFFECT AUDIT: Asked if
the probe of UN operations in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, which
was recently ordered by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, would affect UN
programmes and agencies working there other than the UNDP, the Spokesperson said
the current audit focused primarily on the
UNDP DPRK operations and that local operations by other UN agencies and
programmes will be looked into as well but she could not give a timeline for
when this could happen. Asked if the suspension of UNDP operations in the DPRK
would affect the audit, Montas said it would not.
TREND TOWARDS MORE AND MORE AFGHAN PROVINCES CULTIVATING
OPIUM MAY BE BROKEN: Divergent trends characterize opium cultivation in
Afghanistan this year, with a pronounced divide between the troubled south of
the country and the more stable centre-north, according to a
survey
by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Afghanistan's
Ministry of Counter Narcotics. "The trend towards more and more provinces in
Afghanistan cultivating opium may be broken," UNODC Executive Director Antonio
Maria Costa said. "We are witnessing divergent trends. This is a moderately good
sign."
BAN KI-MOON TO MEET WITH SENIOR U.S. OFFICIAL ON D.P.R.K.: Asked for
an agenda of today's meeting between the Secretary-General and Nicholas Burns,
the U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, and how that meeting
was initiated, Montas said that the United States had requested the meeting and
that it would be on the DPRK and other issues.
BAN KI-MOON AWAITS RESULTS OF INTRA-PALESTINIAN TALKS: Asked if the
Secretary-General would be welcoming the latest development in intra-Palestinian
talks aimed at forming a unity government and a similar development in Lebanon,
Montas said that Ban Ki-moon had already welcomed the Mecca Agreement charting
out the way to a Palestinian unity government and that the Secretary-General was
now waiting for the results of the talks.
U.N. ENVOY QAZI TO ATTEND REGIONAL SECURITY CONFERENCE IN BAGHDAD:
Asked if the Secretary-General had been invited to attend the 10 March regional
security conference in Baghdad between Iraq and its neighbors, the Spokesperson
said that the Secretary-General would not be attending that meeting. She later
added that the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Iraq, Ashraf Qazi,
would be attending.
BAHRAIN PRIME MINISTER RECEIVES HIGHEST UN-HABITAT
AWARD: Prime Minister of Bahrain, Sheikh Khalifa Bin Salman Al Khalifa has
been awarded UN-HABITAT Highest Award, a Special Citation of the Habitat Scroll
of Honour, for his “impressive efforts in lifting the living standards of all
Bahrainis through an active focus on poverty alleviation and modernization while
preserving the cultural heritage of his country."
*The guest at the noon briefing today was Alicia
Bárcena, the Under-Secretary for Management.
Office of the Spokesman for the Secretary-General
United Nations, S-378
New York, NY 10017
Tel. 212-963-7162
Fax. 212-963-7055
