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HIGHLIGHTS OF PRESS BRIEFING BY BRENDEN VARMA,?SPOKESPERSON FOR GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT MIROSLAV LAJ??K

PRESIDENT BACK IN NEW YORK AFTER ATTENDING MÄ¢¹½ÊÓƵICH SECURITY CONFERENCE

• The President is back in New York after a weekend in Germany, where he participated in the Munich Security Conference.
• There he took part in a discussion on ¡°Europe and the Sahel: A Partnership for Development, Security and Migration¡±. He noted that taking into account the experience and positions of Africa, including the five Sahel countries, would be crucial during the negotiations on the Global Compact on Migration.
• He also met with the First Vice President of the Republic of South Sudan to discuss the United Nations¡¯ work on the ground there.
• In a meeting with the Foreign Minister of the Kyrgyz Republic, he discussed the upcoming launch of the International Decade of Water for Sustainable Development on 22 March.
• He spoke about regional developments in separate meetings with the Foreign Ministers of the former Yugoslav Republic?of Macedonia and Montenegro.
• With the Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, the President discussed current United Nations reform processes and proposals and the agenda and work of the General Assembly.
• He also met with officials from the European Commission, the United Nations Office at Geneva (Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵOG), the United Nations Environment Programme (Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵEP), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe?(OSCE) and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
• With the ICC Prosecutor, he spoke about the work of the Court. They agreed that the forthcoming 20^th anniversary of the Rome Statute offered a good opportunity to reflect on current dynamics related to the Court and Statute.

NEGOTIATIONS ON MIGRATION COMPACT TO LAÄ¢¹½ÊÓƵCH TOMORROW

• There are a number of events on migration happening this week.
• For example, the first round of negotiations on the global compact on safe, orderly and regular migration will start tomorrow.
• Member States have before them the compact¡¯s zero draft, which was made public at the beginning of this month.
• The negotiations will be chaired by the co-facilitators, who are the Permanent Representatives of Mexico and Switzerland.
• The President will also be meeting this afternoon with Louise Arbour, the Secretary-General¡¯s Special Representative for International Migration.

OFFICIAL NOMINATED TO PRESIDE OVER CONFERENCE ON MARINE BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY INSTRUMENT

• After extensive consultations, the President has nominated Rena Lee of Singapore as the President-designate of the intergovernmental conference on an international legally binding instrument under the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Convention on the Law of the Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction.
• The organizational meeting for this conference will be held from 16 to 18 April.
• The first session of the conference will then be held in September.
• The goal of the conference will be to elaborate the text of the binding instrument.