SG/SM/7569/Rev.1*

TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE BY SECRETARY-GENERAL KOFI ANNAN AT UNITED NATIONS OFFICE AT GENEVA, 2 OCTOBER 2000

The Secretary-General: Thank you very much. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It is a pleasure to see you again. I know these days I do not come to Geneva as often as I used to. I know that you all want to know who will be the next High Commissioner. I do expect to make a recommendation to the General Assembly within this month. But, I am afraid today I have no dramatic announcement to make. Sadly, today's meeting of the UNHCR Executive Committee will be the last of Sadako Ogata's tenure. I wanted to pay tribute to her for the magnificent job she has done in the last 10 years and at the same time to reassure the staff after the recent tragedies in East Timor and Guinea that we are not going to leave them unprotected. I also wanted to stress to the Member States how important it is that UNHCR be properly funded. Again and again, Mrs. Ogata has had to reduce her budget, sometimes cancelling or suspending activities that are crucial to the welfare of refugees. But even on that reduced budget, her Office predicts a significant shortfall at the end of the year. I am going from here to Strasbourg, Paris and Brussels to meet the leaders of the four very important regional organizations -- the Council of Europe, the European Union, the European Parliament and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). With all of them I shall be stressing the importance of European support for United Nations activities and objectives right across the board. Peacekeeping, of course, but also the humanitarian work. And, above all, the targets for reducing human misery set by the Millennium Summit in New York last month. There is also much that European and other industrialized countries can do: by opening their markets more widely to the developing country exports; by increasing development aid; and by moving faster and farther to release poor countries from their crippling debts.

Let me just make three quick points on that last issue. First, debt relief must not be seen as an alternative to development assistance. It must be additional to it. Otherwise, we will simply be robbing Peter to pay Paul, or even forcing Paul to pay himself. Second, we must now deliver on the promises made to improve the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Debt Initiative scheme. Most of the debtor countries are now fulfilling the complex conditions required of them by the international community. Now the creditors have to fulfil their side of the bargain without further delay. Thirdly, while we might wish that this will be the last debt crisis the world will have to cope with,

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* Reissued to reflect translated text originally delivered in French.

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we know that that is unlikely to be true. Let us be better prepared in the future. Increasingly, both debtors and creditors recognize that we need clearer principles for working out debt problems. We need to make sure all parties are properly represented and listening to each other. We need better coordination between private and official creditors. We need to bring all the creditors to the table which means giving all of them incentives to engage in dialogue. Most of all, we need clear rules on how the burden should be shared.

I have also mentioned the ideas about a possible role for mediation between creditors and debtors to make the process fairer and speedier. I do hope policy makers will examine all these ideas and put at least some of them into practice so that future debt crisis do not drag on in the painful and unfair way the present one has. Let me now take your questions.

President of Association of Correspondents accredited to United Nations Office at Geneva: Mr. Secretary-General, on behalf of my colleagues, I welcome you to Geneva and thank you for agreeing to address us. I hope that such direct contact will be intensified in the future. It is what we earnestly desire. My question relates to the situation in the Middle East. In the past few years, the United Nations has made a concrete and at times effective commitment to resolving conflicts. In the Middle East conflict, it remains marginalized. Each time a Secretary-General is asked this question, the reply is that others are in charge of mediation, and in a more effective manner. The current flare-up in the Middle East demonstrates the limits of American mediation. The Palestinians have made an urgent appeal to you for United Nations intervention. What do you have to say to them?

The Secretary-General: I think I had an opportunity this morning to say something on this question. Obviously it is not an easy situation. I�m very concerned by the violence now taking place in the Middle East.

When I said in the past that for every crisis you can only have one mediator, and that if you have a multiplicity of mediators, you can muddy the waters, that should not be interpreted as meaning the United Nations or the Secretary-General were shirking responsibilities. Basically, what I meant was there is a mediator and we are working with the mediator and the parties concerned. I have been directly in touch with both the leaders, Mr. Arafat and Mr. Barak, last week before I left New York. As I indicated this morning, I have a special representative on the ground who is working with the parties to try and diffuse the violent situation and I would hope we will be able to settle this tragedy. Far too many people have lost their lives and are wounded at a time when everyone was hopeful that we can move the peace process forward. And that issues that had not been discussed before are now on the table, and that with a bit of creativity and energy and will, we can find a solution. My own other hope is that this crisis should not derail the peace process. In fact, they should give us yet another incentive, yet another reason if needed to press ahead with the peace process.

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I am in touch with the leaders and I will continue my efforts. As you know, the United Nations played a critical role in the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. We worked together to ensure that the situation remained calm. We are following very closely and very intimately the Palestinian track and, as I said, I hope this will be successful and I can assure you I would do whatever I can and bring whatever effort I can to help the parties to move forward. Eventually, when we turn to the Syrian track, we will make whatever contribution we can to that as well.

Question: Mr. Secretary-General, which are for you the most important or promising results of the United Nations Millennium Summit. And secondly, it seems that you are in favour of a permanent seat for Germany in the Security Council. What are your reasons?

The Secretary-General: The first question was about the success of the Millennium Summit. I'm not sure I got the question.

Question: Which are for you the most important or promising results of the Millennium Summit?

The Secretary-General: I think I have a couple of comments on that. I believe that the fact that the Millennium Summit took place and so many heads of State and governments came together to the United Nations to reaffirm their belief in the Organization, to let the world know that this is an indispensable and unique Organization that they all support, to come to New York with the intention of strengthening the United Nations and making it a real instrument for the twenty-first century, I think was, in itself, an achievement. The other achievement was the incredible convergence of views amongst these leaders from all over the world who agreed on the plan of action. But, as I indicated at the end of the Summit, it should be different this time. This plan of action cannot be seen and should not be seen as a document they leave for the United Nations to implement, because they themselves are the United Nations, and we all have to work together to implement the plan -- reduce people in poverty by 50 per cent by 2015; the fight against AIDS; the sustainable environment; and education for all, particularly for girls -- are issues that everyone has to work on. And so I hope when the governments go home, I challenge them to come up with plans to implement this. The developing countries should do so and those with the capacity to give should provide assistance, and we will work in partnership with governments, with civil society, the private sector, and foundations to implement the scheme.

On your second question, I do not think I would have exactly put it in the words that you did. I think what I have indicated is that reform of the Security Council is necessary, and that we need to bring the Council and the structure of the Council in line with today's reality. You are right that the two seats which are frequently mentioned for industrialized countries, one mentions Germany along with Japan. But the issue of Council reform and who gets new seats belongs to Member States.

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Question: Mr. Secretary-General, elections will soon be held in Kosovo. What do you expect and what do these elections in Kosovo mean for the United Nations?

The Secretary-General: Well, I think we have a mandate in Kosovo to work with the population in exercising substantial autonomy. We hope that the elections that we are organizing towards the end of this month will give them the chance of a direct selection of their leaders, at least at the municipal level, and for them to become much more involved in the administration of the territory and for them to select their leaders. Since we got there, we have been working with some leaders, but these are leaders who were not directly selected by the people. And we hope that once a selection is made, those selected and the leaders selected will become much more involved in the administration and activities of the territory in fulfilment of the mandate that the Security Council has given us.

Question: Mr. Secretary-General, you are particularly attentive to the maintenance of peace throughout the world. You have launched an appeal to the Middle East, you have spoken of Kosovo, but there are still some regions, some hot spots, which elude the vigilance of the United Nations. According to confirmed reports, there is no end to the worsening repression in Tibet, and so far the United Nations has not been too concerned about what is happening on the roof of the world. It is not happening before television cameras. The Tibetans have a reputation for non-violence, and there is some indifference to that problem, which is nonetheless an unresolved colonial problem at the beginning of the twenty-first century. I would therefore like to know: is the United Nations prepared to address the fate of the Tibetans, and is the Secretary- General, in accordance with his mandate to ensure the maintenance of peace throughout the world, prepared to receive the Dalai Lama, who was conspicuously absent from the summit of religious leaders in New York? Are you prepared to receive him in an effort to initiate a dialogue between him and the Chinese authorities and find a peaceful solution to the Tibetan problem? I know that you are a man of good faith and that you will not be the United Nations Secretary-General under whose mandate a final solution to the Tibetan problem will take place.

The Secretary-General: Let me be the first to admit that the United Nations is not everywhere and that the United Nations is not dealing with all crises that the people of the world believe that we should deal with. But, of course, the fact that we cannot be everywhere does not mean we should not deal with the crises that we can deal with and that we should not be where we can be. The issue you raised is for the moment now before the Council and before the United Nations. As Secretary-General, I receive lots of people who ask to see me and it is very rare that I refuse to see those who ask to see me.

Question: Two questions, Mr. Secretary-General, if I may.

The Secretary-General: One please, because we have lots of people in the room.

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Question: I will just ask you then about the candidates for the post of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In the interest of transparency and accountability, would you be prepared to name these candidates and break with a longstanding tradition?

The Secretary-General: This is not a public election. We have organized a long search. In fact, some of the candidates were not even candidates. They had to be sought out. And I do not think it will be appropriate for me to embarrass people who were not even themselves candidates, but had to be sought out. By throwing their name around, if they do not happen to be selected, then they have been rejected. What I can assure you is that the process is a carefully thought out one and a long one. I have looked at a long list of candidates before we established a short list. Those on the short list have been interviewed and we know them well. And I am beginning to consult with governments and I dare say that there is also somebody who himself has worked with the High Commission for Refugees and understands that organization and the importance it means to all of us and the kind of leadership that is required. I am not going to shirk my responsibility and designate somebody who will not be up to the job. But given the explanations that I have had for you, I am not going to give you a list and I am sure that you would understand that. I know that some of you have been very keen. Some have even published lists of candidates. Some of them are not even candidates and we are not really pushing them. I think it is a bit awkward for them. I think we can do this for those running for office, who have put themselves out and want people to know that they want the job, and if they do not get it, and if people do not vote for them, is one thing. But for people whom we approach and say, "Would you consider this job which is important. We think you have a capacity," for me to bandy their name around only to be told they have been rejected is not fair and I do not operate that way.

Question: A follow-up question. Could you possibly tell us what are the qualities you are looking for in the next High Commissioner and whether you think being an outsider to the United Nations system is a disadvantage. Perhaps you could also tell us how many candidates you are considering at this stage.

The Secretary-General: The candidates concerned know the profile we are looking for. We did indicate to them the kind of profile and the leadership qualities that are required. We need somebody with judgement, with leadership. Somebody who can manage this vast and spread-out organization. Somebody who will have the confidence of the donors and the non-governmental organization community and be able to lead the staff and take the United Nations through the difficult transition that it is going through. It does require somebody who comes with considerable experience before him or her. Someone who has demonstrated their own abilities in leadership and management. And let me say here that of course people can have ideas, different ideas as to what the individual should have. But I think we are moving into a period where we need not only the programmatic issues, the question of asylum, the question of fund- raising, the question of advocacy, the question of management and the question of operational activities, but we need somebody with considerable experience.

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Question: Mr. Secretary-General, what kind of response are you getting from the private sector to your global compact programme?

The Secretary-General: The response has been very good, actually. At the last meeting we organized in New York in July, we had about 50 participants who came from quite large companies. The other thing which I am not sure is reasonably well understood is that the global compact is not something for multinational corporations alone. The partnership includes labour unions and non-governmental organizations. And what the compact is intended to do is to encourage these companies to respect the nine principles we have laid out in the areas of human rights, the core labour standards and the environment. And I think the strongest tools we have for the global compact is the question of transparency and dialogue, because they will have to put things they say they have done on the web, and the labour unions and the non-governmental organizations can look at it, and we can push ahead and press them. And I hope more companies will join and they will realize that being socially responsible is also good business.

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