S/PV.3847 Security Council

As this is the first meeting of the Security Council to be held this year, I should like to wish a happy new year to all the members of the Security Council, as well as to all Members of the United Nations and to the Secretariat and, in particular, to welcome the new members of the Council: Bahrain, Brazil, Gabon, the Gambia and Slovenia. We all look forward with confidence to their participation in the work of the Council, and we are convinced that their experience and wisdom will be of invaluable assistance in the discharge of the Council’s responsibilities. I should like also to express the Council’s gratitude to the outgoing members for their active and decisive contributions to the Council’s work. The representatives of Chile, Egypt, Guinea-Bissau, Poland and the Republic of Korea well deserve it. For two years they all contributed decisively to the conduct of the business of the Council. Expression of thanks to the retiring President

I should like also to pay tribute to my predecessor, Ambassador Berrocal Soto of Costa Rica, for the service he rendered as President of the Council during the month of December 1997. I express my deep appreciation to him on behalf of the members of the Council for the great skill he demonstrated as President, and I should also like to thank him for having called on us to participate in a meeting presided over by the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Costa Rica. Adoption of the agenda

I should like to inform the Council that I have received a letter from the representative of Croatia, in which he requests to be invited to participate in the discussion of the item on the There being no objection, it is so decided.

The Security Council will now begin its consideration of the item on its agenda. The Council is meeting in accordance with the understanding reached in its prior consultations. Members of the Council have before them the report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Mission of Observers in Prevlaka, document S/1997/1019. Members of the Council also have before them document S/1998/16, which contains the text of a draft resolution prepared in the course of the Council’s prior consultations. I should like to draw attention to the following other documents: S/1997/984, letter dated 12 December 1997 from the Chargé d’affaires ad interim of the Permanent Mission of Yugoslavia to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General; and S/1997/1002, letter dated 22 December 1997 from the Permanent Representative of Croatia to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary- General. It is my understanding that the Council is ready to vote on the draft resolution before it. Unless I hear any objection, I shall put the draft resolution (S/1998/16) to the vote now. There being no objection, it is so decided.