Highlights of the Noon Briefing
By Fred Eckhard
Spokesman for the Secretary-General
UN Headquarters, New York
The Spokesman noted reports from Afghanistan
which said that the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Afghanistan, Erick
de Mul, had been taken to the front lines north of Kabul by the Taliban
authorities to confirm that there were no child soldiers fighting on that
front. That development, he said, was apparently in response to the Secretary-General's
recent report on Afghanistan, which said that all sides in this conflict
had been using child soldiers.
The United Nations said that de Mul would be seeing senior Taliban officials. "We are waiting to get a report following those meetings," the Spokesman said. "Until we do, we will have no further comment."