**Questions
and Answers
Question:
Thank you, Marie. Marie, you indicated that the Secretary-General had
called Prime Minister Olmert regarding the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
(Inaudible)... that the Prime Minister said that he will look into the
situation. Did the Prime Minister say that in the course of the
telephone conversation or later on in writing?
Deputy
Spokesperson: This is a readout of the phone conversation which we
relayed to you last night. Yes, Lalit?
Question:
Is there any proposal for UN peacekeeping to tackle piracy off the coast of
Somalia?
Deputy
Spokesperson: Somalia piracy? I mentioned to you we will have
a Secretary-General’s statement on that later today. That would
obviously be up to the Security Council to look into. Yes, Matthew?
Question:
Somalia, then a couple of other things. On that, there are some trade
organizations, including the International Chamber of Shipping, inter-tanker
or inter-cargo -- they said that they’ve called; they’ve asked Ban Ki-moon
to take action on the piracy issue. Has he received letters, other than
from Member States on this issue, and has he responded to them?
Deputy
Spokesperson: I am not aware.
Question:
Alright. Also you said this thing on Gaza -- Tzipi Livni has said that
Israel will now boycott the Durban II Conference in April in Geneva. Is
the UN aware of that? Do they have any… Do they see any linkage
between the calls by Ban and the Human Rights Commissioner yesterday in this
announcement?
Deputy
Spokesperson: The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
regrets Israel’s confirmation that they do not intend to participate in the
Durban Review Conference. Given the critical importance of the issues
under discussion at the Conference, broad participation is essential.
These
issues of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance
are issues which affect all countries and millions of individuals around the
world, on a daily basis.
The
outcome document of the original Durban Conference was agreed to by consensus
and is an extremely valuable document with important and innovative
recommendations for tackling racism in all its manifestations.
This
is the initial response from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human
Rights.
Question:
I actually want to ask, on this, what they call the internal justice system,
there is a report -- ACABQ came out with a report fairly critical of the
Secretary-General for not having this system ready for January 1. It was
supposed to be ready. One, what’s the reason for the delay? And
two, what’s the Secretary-General going to do to make sure that some
internal justice system remains in place (inaudible) on December 31?
Deputy
Spokesperson: Well, it’s obviously a high priority for the
Secretary-General. I will look into the question that you have, because
I don’t have anything further on it now. Okay, if there is nothing for
me, Enrique. Thank you very much.
Briefing
by the Spokesperson for the General Assembly President
Good
afternoon to everybody.
Let
me focus today on a couple of issues that are being addressed by the General
Assembly.
The
first one is the reform of the Security Council, which is being discussed in
the Assembly's Open-ended Working Group on the subject. In his opening
statement to the Working Group yesterday, President d´Escoto took the
opportunity to remind Member States that:
“Peace
and security cannot be maintained by a Security Council that is out of date
and out of touch. Let our reform effort, therefore, not run out of time:
we are ready to assume our responsibilities and make the most out of our
historic opportunity to democratize the Security Council. Today the
General Assembly has that opportunity, and I have, beforehand, encouraged
Member States to especially use this debate to take advantage of it.”
As
you know, the President of the General Assembly has launched a major effort to
democratize the Organization, including the Security Council. In this
regard, the Open-ended Working Group restarted its work on Tuesday, 11
November. It now must prepare the ground for the intergovernmental
negotiations that should begin no later than 28 February 2009. This
takes the reform effort to a higher level.
And
on another front, we are shifting into high gear for the follow-up
International Conference on Financing for Development, to be held in Doha,
Qatar, from 29 November to 2 December. As you know, funding for
development and the Millennium Development Goals have been a major UN priority
this year, and the Doha Conference has taken on even greater significance and
urgency, as a result of the global financial crisis.
The
President of the General Assembly is following very closely the negotiations
on the final outcome document of the Conference, which are in their final
stages. He had a meeting yesterday with the two facilitators for the
negotiations, the Ambassadors from Norway and Egypt. And the President
is making himself available to the parties to make sure that we have a
meaningful and substantive document to be signed in Doha next week.
And
finally, I would like also to mention that this morning President d´Escoto
participated at Columbia University, here in New York -- along with other
distinguished speakers, including Mayor Bloomberg –- in a round table on
“The Politics of Food: A Conference on New York’s Next Policy
Challenge”.
President
d´Escoto said in his speech that:
“We
are at a moment of dramatic change, perhaps a turning point. The voices
for change are multiplying and, as old systems collapse in exhaustion, finally
being heard. It is time for a new politics of food, one that starts from
the bottom up, not the top down. We need to have an approach to food
production that is multifunctional, that has a concern for the poor and their
right to food; a concern for the earth and its right to life; a concern for
communities and their right to self-governance; what is referred to as food
sovereignty.”
We
have the speech available online, and we have copies, in case you are
interested, here.
And
this is basically all I have for you, unless there are any questions. Edie.
**Questions
and Answers
Question:
Enrique, are there any details on the key points that the General Assembly
President wants included in this [draft] final document for Doha?
Spokesperson:
Well, he has made it quite clear what are the elements that he would like to
be there in the final outcome. But right now he’d like to see how
it’s going to be, the final outcome of the negotiations that are taking
place right now. He is now in the phase of informing -- you know, this
is a negotiation process. I think by the end of this week or the
beginning of next, on Monday, we will have a clear picture on what are the
problems, if there are any, or what are the main issues for discussion. Mr.
Abbadi.
Question:
Enrique, thank you. Besides encouraging the members of the Open-ended
Working Group to reform the Security Council, has the President proposed, or
does he intend to propose, any concrete recommendations?
Spokesperson:
Well, he’s mediating in the process. He has made a major goal of this
Presidency that at least we start, seriously, the reform of the Security
Council, the impending reform of the Security Council. He has inherited,
as you know, the rules of the game, if I may use this expression, coming from
the sixty-second session period, which basically was that to allow the
Open-ended Working Group for some time before intergovernmental negotiations
start not later than 28 February. He himself has appointed a focal
point, as you know -- Ambassador [Zahir] Tanin from Afghanistan -- to make
sure to facilitate the negotiations. And we have a very clear deadline
and a time limit there. And President d´Escoto again is following very
closely and talking to the different ambassadors to make sure that we somehow
unlock the pending issue of reforming the Security Council. James.
Question:
Can I follow up on that? How does the debate that is happening today and
yesterday relate to the broader process?
Spokesperson:
The debate for yesterday and today is basically the status of where we
are on the Open-ended Working Group; and the Open-ended Working Group is
making the negotiations and their positions public and discussing how they are
going to move from there in terms of negotiations. But in the Open-ended
Working Group, we have the time limit and President d´Escoto would like that
we don’t need to wait until February. That’s what he has made very
clear to the ambassadors who are participating. He met with several of
them in the past couple of weeks, trying that we accelerate the process and
don’t wait until the deadline of 28 February.
Question:
Can I ask another question? It’s on the Third Committee, which is
voting on two quite controversial draft resolutions this week. One of
them is the moratorium on the death penalty, which should come up tomorrow.
And the other one is defamation of religion. I’m interested in if the
President is taking a position on either of these. I know there was what
he said in the press conference on the defamation. I wasn’t entirely
sure if that was his actual position or if he knew the resolution in depth.
Do you have any more on any of those?
Spokesperson:
Well, he has been also having a look at the resolutions that are coming up.
He knows that there are negotiations going on right now on the draft
resolutions and, as President of the General Assembly, he doesn’t want right
now to interfere in those negotiations. So once we have the final
outcome of the resolutions, he will make his opinion available.
Question:
Fast and furious attempts to find what he thinks. One is this debate
today in the Security Council involves (inaudible) Article 26 of the Charter,
which called on the Security Council to make proposals about disarmament to
the General Assembly, which he hasn’t done. Do you think, as President
of the General Assembly, does Father Miguel believe that, does he support this
debate? Does he think that a referral should be made? Does he
think that the Security Council has done what it should on disarmament?
Spokesperson:
Let me go back to have a look with more details, and I’ll come back to you.
However, having said that, you know that disarmament is also one of the
main priorities of this Presidency. And it is one of the issues, also,
that President d´Escoto would like to start moving. We have a very
ambitious agenda, as you know, and there are many issues that have been
already taken action, and this is one of the issues that we were actually
talking this morning that he would like this process to be accelerated as
well.
Question:
Maybe he has some comment on today’s, because it does involve the GA.
And then, this is sort of a strange one, but in his press conference with Evo
Morales of Bolivia, he said at the end that “never has the Catholic Church
sided with a revolution in favour of the dispossessed.” I think
that’s what he said. So today the Permanent Observer of the Holy See
has taken issue with that and has said, for example, that the Catholic Church
backed up things in the Philippines and even mentioned Nicaragua. So I
wonder, I don’t know, I’m just putting the ball back in your court.
Is this a considered position of Father Miguel that the Catholic Church has
never done... What does he think of the example of the Philippines, if
you can get an answer on that for the Holy See?
Spokesperson:
Let me check that, and I’ll come back to you on this particular issue.
Mr. Abbadi.
Question:
When the President gets the conclusions of the Open-ended Working Group in
February, I think 20th or 26th, is there a deadline?
Spokesperson:
It’s a little more complicated. I didn’t want to complicate your
life, but since you ask, I’m going to complicate it. The Open-ended
Working Group should make their final decision before 1 February. And
the intergovernmental negotiations should start not later than 28 February.
That is the deadline.
Question:
And after the negotiating group gets the recommendations from the Open-ended
Working Group, what procedure does the President of the General Assembly
intend to follow? Is there a deadline also for the negotiating group or
is there no deadline, and what procedure is he going to resort to vote, or is
it going to be open-ended again?
Spokesperson:
No. First, we need to wait and see what are the recommendations by the
Open-ended Working Group. And in this particular case, most of the
positions are already known. But still, the President of the General
Assembly wants to make sure that it allows enough time for the discussion in
the Open-ended Working Group. With those recommendations, then we will
see, or the President of the General Assembly will decide, what is the best
way to move forward. But what we have already is a consensus that there
are going to be negotiations at the intergovernmental level in the plenary in
the General Assembly, which is already a major breakthrough.
Question:
So, the process within the negotiating group will also be open?
Spokesperson:
Correct. That’s what makes it different now from before; one of the
differences.
Question:
(inaudible)...day, no deadline for the negotiating group?
Spokesperson:
No, there is no deadline because that is something that the Member States have
to agree among themselves. As you know, it’s a very complex issue.
It’s a puzzle that the Member States need to try to resolve, although there
is a broad consensus that it is not representative of the twenty-first century
and that it should be reformed to allow -- both in terms of quantity and
quality -- to improve the composition of the Security Council.
Question:
When are these recommendations to take (inaudible)?
Spokesperson:
As I said before, they are discussing them right now, and they have the
deadline of 1 February 2009. Okay, thank you very much.
