UN official attends ceremony to mark end of World Trade Centre recovery effort

A senior United Nations official represented the UN at a solemn ceremony in downtown Manhattan today to mark the end of the recovery effort at the World Trade Center site.

Gillian Sorenson, the Assistant Secretary-General for External Relations, attended the ceremony - at which no speeches were made - on behalf of Secretary-General Kofi Annan and witnessed the removal of the last 30-foot steel column from the site, as a symbolic firehouse bell tolled and bagpipers played.

Secretary-General Annan first visited "ground zero" a week after the attack, expressing his shock at the magnitude of the destruction and conveying the full support, sympathy and admiration of the UN to New Yorkers.

Mr. Annan later returned to the site on November 11, when United States President George W. Bush visited ground zero.