Secretary-General visits South-East Asia, offers to assist in ending conflict...and visits United Kingdom.

As Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar left Thailand on 1 February--at the end of the first week of a scheduled three-week visit to Asia and the Pacific--he appealed for a dialogue aimed at a negotiated settlement in South-East Asia.

"My appeal to all is the same: Stop confrontation, start talking, make peace", he declared in a statement made at a press conference in Bangkok before leaving for Malaysia.

Mr. Perez de Cuellar arrived in Thailand on 25 January, and visited the Lao People's Democratic Republic and Viet Nam from 28 to 30 January, where he met with top officials before returning to Thailand. On 31 January, in Bangkok, he also met with leaders of Democratic Kampuchea.

After Malaysia, he is scheduled to visit Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand.

The Secretary-General in his Bangkok press conference also said that he "came to this region as a man of peace in order to evaluate the situation and to see how I could help the parties involved try to settle peacefully the tragic conflict of this region", adding he could not impose a solution but had attempted to find common ground. All parties, he said, had told him they wanted peace and supported his efforts.

"It would be naive of me to think that a quick solution to so complex a problem will be easy, or even possible, in the near future. But I have transmitted to the leaders I have visited important messages of peace." He had received, he said, clarifications which would be "very useful in helping each side to understand the other's point of view".

Stating it was time "to move from words to deed", he said he stood ready to assist all involved to find common ground for a dialogue aimed at a negotiated settlement.

In talks with Thailand's Prime Minister, General Prem Tinsulanonda, and Foreign Minister, Air Chief Marshal Siddhi Savetsila, the Secretary-General said he had come to make an evaluation of the situation, adding that something had to be done as soon as possible to start a negotiation process on the problems of the area. Concerning the problem of displaced persons in Thailand, he said he would continue his active role in mobilizing international assistance.

At A dinner in his honour, the Secretary-General said he had followed with increasing concern the tensions and hostilities which had developed in the Thai-Kampuchea border area. Those events had imposed further deprivation and hardship on the civilian population concerned, demonstrating once again the risks of escalation and wider confrontation inherent to all military operations and underscoring the urgent need for a resolute return to the path of dialogue and negotiation.

While he was aware that dialogue could not and should not be an end in itself, yet it had always been, and would remain, "a fundamental instrument of conflict control and resolution", the Secretary-General said. At the same time, he did not under-estimate the obstacles to the definition of a mutually acceptable basis for a productive dialogue, particularly in the present circumstances.

The Secretary-General said it was his conviction, nevertheless, that Thailand and its Association of South-East Asian Nations partners had a special role to play in that process through the systematic exploration and the consolidation of all the apparent or potential areas of convergence. It was only in this way that there would be success in creating an atmosphere conductive to mutual accommodation and to the initiation of genuine negotiations involving all parties concerned. Only then would it be possible to leave behind the protracted conflict and rivalries of the past and open the way to renewed hope for the enduring era of peace and stability to which the peoples of the region had aspired for so long, he said.

While in Thailand, the Secretary-General also visited the Khao-I-Dang camp for Kampuchean displaced persons, several evacuation centres and United Nations and other facilities, acquainting himself with the activities of the United Nations Border Relief Operations and of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

In Vientiane, during a three-hour stopover on 28 January, the Secretary-General met with Vice-President of the Council of Ministers and Foreign Minister Phoune Sipaseuth and Vice-Foreign Minister Soubanh Srithirath. He said whether, it be the questions of Kampuchea, the relations between Laos and Thailand or other problems which continued to weigh on the future of the region, it was important to be wary of polemics and confrontation and to return once again to the road of negotiation and dialogue.

Arriving in Hanoi on 28 January, the Secretary-General met with Viet Nam's Foreign Minister, Nguyen Co Thach who stressed the importance of his visit at this time for the search for peace in the area. In two days of talks, they discussed all aspects of the problems of the region, and the Secretary-General reaffirmed his willingness to exercise his mission of good offices to try to help the situation, and begin a dialogue towards a peaceful solution.

In Hanoi, the Secretary-General also held talks with Prime Minister Pham Van Dong. They reviewed the international situation and recent trends, and the possibilities for new approaches to the problems of the region. In addition, Mr. Perez de Cuellar laid a wreath at the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, visited a number of United Nations projects and held a press conference for the Vietnamese and foreign press.

The Secretary-General returned to Bangkok on 30 January and the next day visited the headquarters of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific and addressed the staff. He also met with the leaders of Democratic Kampuchea--Prince Norodom Sihanouk, President of the Democratic Kampuchea Coalition Government and Prime Minister Son Sann of the same Coalition. That evening, King Bhumibol and Queen Sirikit of Thailand gave a dinner in honour of Mr. and Mrs. Perez de Cuellar at the Royal Residence at chiang Mai. (Press Releases SG/T/1294-1302)