Statement by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at the UN Security Council Meeting on the Situation in Yemen
Mr. President,
We would like to thank Special Envoy M.Griffiths and Under-Secretary-General M.Lowcock for a comprehensive review of the military, political, and humanitarian situation in Yemen.
We welcome the progress reached by the sides during the fourth joint session of the Redeployment Coordination Committee held under the auspices of Lieutenant General M. Lollesgaard. We would like to commend the efforts to deploy the UN Mission to support the Hodeidah Agreement that is meant to promote internal Yemeni agreements reached in Stockholm and speed up the disengagement and redeployment of the opposing sides. This would undoubtedly add to a decrease in violence both in Hodeydah and beyond the city line.
Mr. President,
We realize that there can be no instant results, but we prefer to believe that we are beginning a new stage of resolving the Yemeni conflict. In this regard we highly commend the UN efforts to promote the implementation of the Stockholm agreements, in particular I am talking about the mediation of Mr.Griffiths and Gen. Lollesgaard. We hope they will help the sides realize the futility and non-viability of the resolution of internal Yemeni confrontation by force. From the very start of the conflict, Russia has been standing solely for its peaceful diplomatic solution via an inclusive dialogue between all the Yemeni actors. We continue our asistance, i.a. via contacts with all the political forces within the country and all the interested stakeholders, whereby we encourage them to look for constructive approaches and abandon force-based decisions.
We regret to see that despite fragile de-escalation in Hodeydah, the Yemeni conflict is gaining features of a full-fledged humanitarian disaster. Millions of Yemenis starve, have no access to medicines and services and are in a dire need of aid.
Civil facilities lie in ruins. The cost of restoring the country’s devastated economy grows exponentially.
Mr. President,
We call upon all the members of the Council to make collective steps in order to transfer this conflict to the political path, ensure the total ceasefire and provide assistance to the people of Yemen.
Emergency humanitarian assistance to the Yemenis is a priority. Russia, alongside with many other UN member States, including Yemen’s closest neighbors, continuously contributes to providing assistance to the people of Yemen. We are convinced that the humanitarian help delivered in Yemen from abroad should be accessible for all the people of the republic, no matter who controls the area where they live. We stand for strict compliance with the provisions of international humanitarian law and unimpeded humanitarian access to all the regions of the country. It is important to start the traffic of humanitarian and commercial goods at the Hodeydah-Sana road that links the coast with the North of the country where the majority of the population live.
Mr. President,
In conclusion, we would like to emphasize that restoration of political process in Yemen would become a key contribution to the stabilization in the entire sub-region. We remind of our proposal to start developing a package of confidence building measures in the Gulf and, in prospect – in the Middle East at large. Such architecture, where all the key States of the region – the Gulf countries and Iran – should participate, would contribute to the strengthening of all-encompassing indivisible security in this part of the globe, and also to finding solutions to long-lasting and new crisis situations, incl. the conflict in Yemen. Threats and confrontations should give way to dialogue and cooperation. We should urgently joint our efforts to improve the climate around this issue, which would be crucial for the success of Mr. M.Griffiths’s efforts.
Thank you.
