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Asked by Assembly, UN Secretariat will report on Jenin, other Palestinian cities

Asked by Assembly, UN Secretariat will report on Jenin, other Palestinian cities

The United Nations Secretariat will work expeditiously to prepare a report on recent events in Jenin and other Palestinian cities, as requested by the General Assembly, a UN spokesman announced today.

Yesterday, the General Assembly adopted a resolution requesting Secretary-General Kofi Annan to "present a report, drawing upon the available resources and information, on the recent events that took place in Jenin and in other Palestinian cities."

"The Secretariat will review available information," spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters in New York. "It will also request the Government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority to provide information."

"We hope that the parties will cooperate fully with us as we prepare this report," he added. "We will prepare the report as expeditiously as possible, bearing in the mind that we will need to gather and review all available information, and that we hope that the parties will provide us with information."

In requesting a report on "Jenin and other Palestinian cities" in its resolution, the Assembly sought a broader scope than that called for by Security Council resolution 1405, which specified only "recent events in the Jenin refugee camp," Mr. Eckhard noted.

Asked who would be involved in preparing the report, Mr. Eckhard said primarily personnel from the Department of Political Affairs, including at least one person who had been assigned by that Department to the fact-finding team assembled by Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Those preparing the new report "will be using all information available, so that would include anything that the fact-finding team had assembled in Geneva before it was disbanded," the spokesman noted.