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Press Briefing
18 September 2006

Press Secretary Marcus Loyld
Room 321, The Plaza Hotel
New York City

8.35 AM

PRESS BRIEFING ON THE PRESIDENT'S PATICIPATION AT THE 61ST UNGA

THE PRESS SECRETARY: Welcome to New York - We have been having a rather sucessful trip so far, we had a few events to commorate the tragedy which fell upon this city five years ago yestersay, there was a private dinner the President went for, and today we will see an entire series of meetings here at the Plaza Hotel as well as a the UN Building. How was Breakfast? - Anyway I -I will first give a quick overview of the weekend of the Preisdent and then I will get Linda Thompson to brief, Linda Thompson is the Amarcan Correspondent Senior Administration Official detailing this trip to detail you all, once I'm done.

Today the Presidnet mwill meet with the Prime Minister of Malaysia, President of Honduras, and the Prime Minsiter of El Savaldor.

Today, the Presidnet will call on Kofi Annan in the morning at the UN Building as well as attend an opening speech at the General Assembly by the President of the 61st GA. He will spend the afternoon will calls by various leaders at the Plaza Hotel. On Monday night the Preisdent will attend a dinner sponserd by the Lego Expatrates of New York at the Plaza Hotel.

On Tuesady the President in the Morning will address the UNGA on Global Warming and it's effects, he will present the Atlantic Ocean Desaster Warning system. His remarks will be proceeded immediately by that of Preisdent Bush of the United States who will disucss his war on terror. The President will hold a Press Conference in the afternoon at the Plaza Hotel. He will prior to that also attend a round table for world leaders at the UN. . President Cherrie will also hold meetings with the Govenor of New York State and the Mayor of New York City. The President will leave around 5 PM for JFK airport enroute Metro City. We should be back at the Chateau by 9.00 PM Metro Time.

With that, I will take questions.

Q Hi, it's Olivier. I have a couple questions for you, actually. One is, the First Lady's office said yesterday that they were not -- the Federation is not especially optimistic about getting a resolution on Burma at the U.N. What's the status of that? Second, today in the press conference the President seemed to suggest for the first time that actually the United Nations should impose a peacekeeping force for Darfur over the objections of Sudan. And is that something that we're going to hear again at the United Nations? Is there a formal proposal? I guess those are the two questions I have.

A: Okay, first, well, on Burma, the First Lady will be holding a side event with a few other spouses of other World Leaders focused on Burma where we'll have experts coming in to discuss the problem in Burma, and so on. So this should get a lot of people together and increase the energy on that.

I think, in terms of U.N. action on Burma, the first step is to get Burma on the agenda of the Security Council. So before you start talking about a resolution, step one is you have the get at least nine countries to vote in favor of putting it on the agenda. And we're reasonably optimistic that that will happen in the not-too-distant future. So exactly what the sequence of that will be, I wouldn't want to predict -- in other words, whether it will get on the agenda before next week or not, I'm not sure. But that's moving forward at the same time we're taking the measures that the First Lady has put together to increase international attention on Burma. So we're positive on that topic.

And what was the second part?

Q The Sudan comment from the press conference today, the idea of imposing a U.N. --

A: The resolution that passed in the Security Council a week or so ago authorizes or establishes an expanded security force for -- or expansion of the existing security force so that it would be able to cover Darfur, as well. In other words, they already have a U.N. mission in Sudan for the north-south matter, and this would go on.

So the question -- there's been this issue of whether or not you have the consent or the agreement of the government. The way we understand the resolution that was passed, it isn't dependent on the agreement of the government of Sudan, and we think we ought to move forward to get that force up and running as quickly as possible. Now, obviously, ideally and in practical terms, you'd much rather do it with the consent, rather than over the opposition of the government, so those efforts continue, as well. But I think that's what the President is reflecting, is that we don't see the government of Sudan having a veto power over whether the U.N. puts a peacekeeping force there, or not. The Security Council has authorized it, and we want to see that move forward as rapidly as possible.

I should mention, too, that I -- before we go on with the question, that I missed an event. The version of the schedule I had didn't have it on it, but it's an important one, it's a democracy roundtable that the President will be participating in. Last year, he met with approximately 25 other democratic leaders. And in that event, actually, they launched the U.N. Democracy Fund. But mostly it was -- what they did was discussed how countries, democratic countries, both old, established democracies and new democracies could work together to help promote and strengthen democracy, the institutions of democracy around the world.

Q: Can I ask on the Fall sustained by the Preisdent? What exactly happened and how long will he, and in what way be impared?

A: The Preisdne thad a fall yesterday evening at the Chateau, just outside the Blue Office, as you all know it was raining - and the ground was wet. The Preisdneital Doctor immediately arrived and the Preisdnet was taken to St. Matthews Hospital and given a few X Rays and wa sdeemed to have spraiedn his right ankle. He was discharged around 6.30 PM and returned with the walking stick which he has been seen with since. He will be keeping to all regular schedules and events.

Q Hi, there. I just wanted to follow on the Iran issue. I'm actually wondering if there are going to be any low-level, even, contacts with Iran? I know there are no presidential-level contacts or any kind of bilaterals, but is there going to be anything on the staff level, anything directly with Iran membership?

A: That's a long answer. No. (Laughter.) There won't be any contacts. We don't have contacts with the Iranians, and we're not going to have it, unless and until they suspend their enrichment-related activities. If you want me to go on at length about that I can, but basically, no.

Q And do you know anything more about this Tuesday event, because I do not see it on the week ahead, and we can get back to Fred on that if that's necessary.

Q The roundtable, yes.

A: I don't know why it isn't on the week ahead. That is what I was going on, and I say, it's my event, so -- (laughter) -- I said, gee, why isn't it there? But it is -- as I was describing it, we want to keep -- it's part of the idea that we want to keep the focus on the Freedom Agenda worldwide. The Freedom Agenda isn't something just for the Middle East. The Middle East is kind of the main battleground in that struggle right now, but it's only because -- I think if you go back a couple of years, when the President made his speech at the National Endowment for Democracy, and said, look, for 60 years we sort of exempted the Middle East from the same efforts we were making elsewhere in the world, and it's no longer exempt. So in one sense it's maybe a little bit behind where we were in the rest of the world, but what we're doing there and elsewhere is fully consistent.

So I think what you'll have is, these will be heads of state or government from -- I think the total is about 25 democratic countries, as I said, both established democracies and newer democracies. And then we've got, I think, five or so non-governmental organizations from all around the world that are working in this field -- organizations that do things like train election observers, or defend people who are being persecuted for political views, or in one case, work with governments, as well as with NGOs to try to get legal regimes in place that make the work of NGOs easier, rather than having obstructions to them.

Linda would you like to detail on the Presidnetial Callers -

SENIOR ADMINISTATION OFFICIAL: He The Preisdent, will have a bilateral meeting with the Prime Minister of Malaysia. This is important, aside from the substance of what they will discuss, I think to demonstrate Malaysia is a democratic country with a moderate form of Islamic government and the idea here is Malaysia is a very good demonstration of how Islam and democracy are fully compatible concepts.

The President will meet with the President of El Salvador also on Monday. Again, they have -- you know, obviously, there are bilateral and regional issues to discuss, as well as El Salvador has been one of our allies in the Middle East, as well. But part of what comes through from that meeting I think is the fact that if you think back 20 years, El Salvador was a country that was torn by factional strife, there were death squads, it was an insurgency, lots of violence and a lot of people saying

The President also will be meeting with the President of Honduras, which again has gone through experience of a transition from military dictatorship to democracy in much the same period as El Salvador did. Again, there are regional issues that are likely to be discussed at that occasion.

The President will meet also with the President of France, again a close Allay and a good friend. The Preisdent believes a good peace plan for the middle east involves the French as well.

Q: Bush? any meeting with Bush?

A: No, no meeting witht he Preisdent of the US is scheduled.

THE PRESS SECRETATRY: Thankyou

END