Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations

Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations

Statement by Mr. Peter Iliichev, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations at the Security Council meeting on implementation of the note by the President of the Security Council

January 29, 2016


We would like to thank you personally, Mr. President, and the whole Uruguayan delegation for your skilful and effective presidency of the Council for January.

This month saw a full agenda. We had a thorough consideration of a number of African topics: Mali, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire and the situations in Darfur and West Africa. We sent a Security Council mission to Burundi and the headquarters of the African Union, a positive result of which was the President of Burundi’s affirmation of his willingness and openness to accept international support for his country’s efforts to find a solution to the crisis there. We should take advantage of the opportunity. That solid list shows that the majority of the Council’s work has been focused on African problems.

I would particularly like to note the Security Council’s adoption on 25 January of resolution 2261 (2016), establishing a United Nations mission in Colombia. We believe that the progress the parties have made in settling their 50-year conflict and the decision to invite the further facilitation of the United Nations constitute an important, perhaps even historic event not only for Colombians but for the region as a whole. Moscow is keeping a keen eye on the course of the negotiations and will maintain its steadfast support to reaching a speedy conclusion to the peace process.

Over the past month, the Council has considered the humanitarian aspects of the internal armed conflict in Syria three times. There can be no doubt that we must not relax our attention to the situation there, given the extremely grave consequences that the conflict, the terrorist atrocities and the attempts of certain external actors to forcibly redraw the centuries-old ethno-religious map of Syria have had for the civilian population. However, we believe that this is not a case where the quantity of meetings reflects their quality. To start with, once the plight of the residents of the

besieged cities became the subject of the Council’s intense attention, it was treated in a very one-sided and biased way. Secondly, behind this activity there clearly lurks a wish to distract attention from fundamental issues of settlement and perhaps even to sabotage the start of talks in Geneva. We must realize that without the comprehensive political solution that we are all hoping for, the humanitarian situation will not improve.

Unfortunately, we are compelled to conclude that from time to time some delegations exploit their status as members of the Council to politicize and put a propagandistic spin on their own particular priorities, rather than working quietly and painstakingly on the maintenance of international peace and security within the Council’s authority under the Charter of the United Nations. That applies in particular to the Arria Formula meeting held a few days ago on the global challenge of accounting for missing persons from conflict, human rights abuses, disasters, organized crime, migration and other involuntary causes. There is no justification for the artificial tying of this topic to the work of the Security Council. There was no prior consultation of Council members on the need for such a meeting, and most were simply presented with a fait accompli. We believe that this undermines the collective principles of the work of the Security Council.

Incidentally, that collective approach helps to improve the effectiveness of the Council’s activities, including such important tools as mission visits. In any case, there is nothing to prevent individual Council members from visiting countries they are interested in in their national capacity. We would like to point out that Arria Formula meetings are supposed to be informal confidential occasions for a frank exchange of views in private on the issues that fall under the Security Council’s remit. Unfortunately, we are increasingly seeing individual Council members abusing the format by making use of it to push their own initiatives or those of their proxy organizations. Such events should be held on the margins, not paid for under the Organization’s budget.

In conclusion, I would like to express our thanks to the outgoing Director of the Security Council Affairs Division, Mr. Movses Abelian, for his assistance and his facilitation of the Council’s work, and to congratulate him on his promotion. I would also like to wish the incoming Venezuelan presidency of the Council every success in carrying out its functions.