Statement by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at the UN Security Council Meeting on Peacekeeping Operations
Mr. President,
We thank Under-Secretary-General J-P. Lacroix for his report. We are thankful to the Force Commanders of the UNAMID and the UNFCYP for their briefings about the state of affairs in their missions.
Let me avail of the opportunity and express our appreciation to all peacekeepers for their faithful service that sometimes proceeds in precarious environment, and to honor the memory of those who paid the ultimate price for the sake of peace.
Mr. President,
I will put some questions, however before I do I would like to say a few well-known yet very important words about peacekeeping.
What is crucial for success of any UN peacekeeping operation is constructive cooperation between peacekeepers, power authorities of the deployment countries, and parties to conflict, as well as adherence of host countries to missions’ key tasks rather than to secondary and subsidiary mandates.
We assume that it is the host countries that bear the main responsibility for protection of civilians, establishing political process, elimination of crisis root causes, and post-conflict recovery. We believe there is potential to fully engage deployment countries in triangular interaction between the Security Council, the Secretariat and troop-contributing countries. I am convinced this would enhance the efficiency of this mechanism.
Peacekeeping operations should not become a replacement for host countries’ power authorities, but should provide the required assistance as countries implement crisis-relief strategies. This being said, their goal should be to enhance the capacity of power authorities in order to avoid recurrence of conflict.
The countries that managed to create favorable conditions for national reconciliation and post-crisis recovery are the ones where missions interacted with national governments in a confident and effective way.
We believe it important to ensure a seamless transition from peacekeeping to peacebuilding. We expect this to happen in Darfur in the context of 2020 drawdown and subsequent withdrawal of the joint mission by the UN and the AU from this region.
Mr. President,
What remains pressing is the issues of enhancing efficiency of peacekeeping missions and ensuring security of Blue Helmets.
Efficiency of peacekeeping directly depends on whether the Secretariat and missions “on the ground” accurately implement consensus agreements by States regarding peacekeeping issues. It is these agreements that reflect shared commitments that States expressed readiness to take on.
In this regard, let me remind that “Action Plan” related to the so called “Cruz report” on improving security of peacekeepers, should be implemented solely in the framework of the parameters endorsed by the GA Special Committee of Peacekeeping. “Peacekeeping intelligence/ collection and analysis of information” can only be used to ensure safety of peacekeepers and protect civilians. Any misuse of these tools, including their use for political purposes, risks to undermine trust towards peacekeeping activities of the UN.
In light of this and following your request, Mr. President, I would like to put some questions to the Contingent Commanders: In your activities, are you guided by the recommendations articulated in the Cruz report? If the answer is yes, than in what way?
We would also like to point out that mandates of some of Security Council missions, including the UNFCYP, contain a provision to improve the effectiveness of peacekeeping. This provision had been included therein before the Secretariat developed this document. My question is: have you already accounted for that in your work?
We expect that before the Secretariat and the missions implement the provisions of the report, it will pass through the necessary endorsement procedures in the GA Special Committee on Peacekeeping. All the interested States, including contingent-contributors, should participate in the discussion in the spirit of partnership. We expect that the UN Mission in Cyprus will be also guided by this approach.
Thank you.
