Annan discusses Sudan, Iraq, Iran with Austrian foreign minister

VIENNA, July 15, 2004 (dpa) — U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan had talks with Austrian Foreign Minister Benita Ferrero-Waldner on Thursday on issues including the Sudan crisis, Iraq, Iran and Kosovo, an Austrian statement said.

Annan was in Vienna on a private visit after a tour of Africa and Asia. The main item on his Austrian agenda was a meeting of the “High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change” which he set up last year.

According to U.N. sources, the panel is an international body recommending practical measures for collective action “based upon a rigorous analysis of future threats to peace and security”.

Ferrero-Waldner said she was pleased that the Secretary General had decided to have the panel meeting in Austria this year. A top- level team of personalities would meet at Baden south of Vienna on Friday and Saturday.

They would discuss the challenges of terrorism, and also of “soft threats” by other means than weapons.

Expected among the panel are General Secretary of the Arab League Amr Mussa and General Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohammed ElBaradei. The consultations will be private and not open to the media.

Ferrero-Waldner said that behind the initiative was Annan’s aim to submit new proposals to strengthen the United Nations system in view of the new challenges and threats to the international community.

She said that Austria, together with its partners in the Network of Human Security, had offered a proposal for human rights protection to be a key element in conflict prevention, peace and security.

“We need constant adaptions of the U.N. to the new global conditions,” she said. She welcomed the U.N. Security Council’s unanimously passed Resolution 1546 on Iraq, which would be a good foundation for strong involvement of world organizations in further proceedings in the country.