{"id":113129,"date":"2017-09-13T14:38:28","date_gmt":"2017-09-13T14:38:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/?post_type=document&p=113129"},"modified":"2017-09-26T20:40:13","modified_gmt":"2017-09-26T20:40:13","slug":"press-conference-by-secretary-general-antonio-guterres-at-united-nations-headquarters-excerpts","status":"publish","type":"document","link":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/document\/press-conference-by-secretary-general-antonio-guterres-at-united-nations-headquarters-excerpts\/","title":{"rendered":"Press Conference by Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres at Â鶹APP Headquarters (Excerpts)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
SG\/SM\/18676<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
13 SEPTEMBER 2017<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

Following is a transcript of UN Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres\u2019 press conference, held in New York today:<\/p>\n

\/…<\/p>\n

Question<\/strong>:\u00a0 Thank you, Secretary\u2011General.\u00a0 Abdelhamid Siyam from the Arabic daily\u00a0Al\u2011Quds al\u2011Arabi<\/em>, based in London.\u00a0 I wish this press conference will extend for two hours to ask about Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, but my question would be about Palestine.\u00a0 You just visited the area, sir.\u00a0 First, do you think there\u2026 truly there are enough land to establish an independent continuant, sovereign, viable Palestinian state? \u00a0That’s one question.\u00a0 The second, you have been requested to treat Israel as a normal State, and your Spokesman said so: \u00a0Israel needs to be treated as just a normal State.\u00a0 Is there any country in the world that has been in violation of Security Council resolution and General Assembly resolution, Human Right Council, ICJ [International Court of Justice] as much as Israel? \u00a0Thank you very much.<\/p>\n

Secretary-General<\/strong>:\u00a0 Well, what I said, first of all, is that I believe the two\u2011State solution is a must, that there is no Plan\u00a0B to the two\u2011State solution.\u00a0 And obviously, for the two\u2011State solution to be possible, we need to have a territory adequate for both States.\u00a0 And that is the reason why we have taken a very clear position in relation to the settlement activity that you know.\u00a0 Second, I never used the word “normal”.\u00a0 What I said is that Israel needs to be treated with the same rights and obligations as any other State.\u00a0 And that, I think, is true for Israel or for any other State that does whatever is done.\u00a0 There are rules that need to be abided by.\u00a0 And of course, if they are not, they should\u2026 the non\u2011implementation of rules should be clearly denounced and condemned.\u00a0 But, all States, as I said, must have the same obligations and the same rights.\u00a0 And this, I think, is unquestionable.\u00a0 I didn’t make any comment of the characteristics of the State.<\/p>\n

\/…<\/p>\n

Question<\/strong>:\u00a0 Mr.\u00a0Secretary\u2011General, Benny Avni of the\u00a0New York Post<\/em>.\u00a0 So, to follow up on Abdelhamid question, in your visit to Ramallah, you didn’t meet President [Mahmoud] Abbas.\u00a0 Could you explain why? \u00a0And he was a\u2026 I believe it was reported you met [Recep Tayyip] Erdo\u011fan that day.\u00a0 And also, on Trump, there will be a lot of pressure on you from different quarters, including in the United States, to confront him directly on several political issues that were mentioned here.\u00a0 Will that be your style, or are you going to be a little more\u2026 a little less confrontational?<\/p>\n

Secretary-General<\/strong>:\u00a0 First of all, the reason is very simple.\u00a0 I mean, I had the opportunity to meet the Prime Minister and a number of very relevant high officials of the Palestinian Authority.\u00a0 The visit went very well.\u00a0 And so, I understand that, for reasons that have to do with the questions of unity between West Bank and Gaza, the visit of President Abbas to Turkey was absolutely crucial.\u00a0 And I respected, of course, that choice.\u00a0 There was no diplomatic incident at all related to it.\u00a0 On the contrary, there was a very meaningful dialogue taking place.\u00a0 I\u2026 you will be able to listen to my speech in the beginning of the Assembly, and when you listen to my speech, your question will be answered, not by opinions I might issue today, but by the proof that is in the words that I will pronounce in the General Assembly.<\/p>\n

\/…<\/p>\n

For information media. Not an official record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SG\/SM\/18676 13 SEPTEMBER 2017 Following is a transcript of UN Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres\u2019 press conference, held in New York today: \/… Question:\u00a0 Thank you, Secretary\u2011General.\u00a0 Abdelhamid Siyam from the Arabic daily\u00a0Al\u2011Quds al\u2011Arabi, based in London.\u00a0 I wish this press conference will extend for two hours to ask about Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, but my question […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":172,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[],"document-category":[1699,2637],"document-source":[5352,1897],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[1741,2297,2185,1797,1905,2137,2741],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[6542],"class_list":["post-113129","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","document-category-press-conference","document-category-remarks","document-source-secretary-general","document-source-united-nations-department-of-public-information-dpi","document-subject-human-rights-and-international-humanitarian-law","document-subject-land","document-subject-legal-issues","document-subject-peace-process","document-subject-peace-proposals-and-efforts","document-subject-settlements","document-subject-statehood-related","entity-united-nations-system","document-language-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/113129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/113129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=113129"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=113129"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=113129"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=113129"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=113129"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=113129"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=113129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}