Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
19981222
Manoel de Almeida e Silva, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General, began today's noon briefing by reviewing the schedule of the Security Council, which included consultations this morning on the situation in Iraq. At the outset of those consultations, the Deputy to the Chef de Cabinet, Rolf Knutsson, and the Executive Director of the Office of the Iraq Programme, Benon Sevan, who is also the United Nations Security Coordinator, updated the Council on the situation in that country. The Council was then expected to take up the situation in the Central African Republic and Somalia.
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This morning in Jordan 93 United Nations humanitarian personnel had left Amman for Baghdad, the Deputy Spokesman said. They had crossed into Iraq and would arrive in that city this evening. Seven dependents were also returning. Yesterday, the independent inspection agents from the Lloyds Register had returned to work at the port of Umm Qasr and Al-Walid, along the shared border with Syria. By last night, the inspection agents had cleared the backlog of 34 trucks at Al-Walid, and, this morning, they had resumed work at Trebil, on the border with Jordan, where the backlog of some 100 trucks was being cleared.
Mr. Almeida e Silva said the Executive Director of the Iraq Programme, Mr. Sevan, had asked the humanitarian coordinator on the ground, Hans von Sponeck, and the United Nations agencies in Iraq for an assessment of the impact of the military action, with particular attention to installations and facilities related to the "oil-for-food" programme. He had also requested them to provide information about urgent humanitarian needs, which required funding and resources from outside the "oil-for-food" programme. Those assessments should be completed in approximately one week. Mr. Sevan looked to donor governments and organizations to respond generously to any additional needs identified by the humanitarian agencies.
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Another correspondent asked for a response to a report in the morning edition of the Washington Post that the Secretary-General was setting up a task force to study spinning off the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) into its component parts. Mr. Almeida e Silva said that the
Daily Press Briefing - 4 - 22 December 1998
Secretary-General had an informal, internal group of people from his Office and from the Iraq Programme who were advising him on the current situation in Iraq.
To a follow-up question about how far the UNSCOM spin-off idea had advanced, Mr. Almeida e Silva said he did not know. Meanwhile, it should be remembered that the Special Commission was a subsidiary organ of the Security Council.
Replying to a question about the Secretary-General's plans to send an assessment mission to Iraq, he said he did not have any information on that.
The correspondent then asked for some guidance on the meeting planned for later today between the Secretary-General and the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, Sergey Lavrov. The Deputy Spokesman said if he had a read-out, he would share it with the correspondent later.
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