Statement by Mr.Dmitry Polyanskiy, First Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, at the Security Council on the situation in South Soudan
We thank Under-Secretary-General JeanPierre Lacroix and Special Representative Pramila Patten for their information on the progress of the settlement in South Sudan.
We took note of the briefing by Ambassador Wronecka, Permanent Representative of Poland and Chair of the Committee established pursuant to resolution 2206 (2015) concerning South Sudan, about that subsidiary body’s activity for the second half of 2018.
The Russian Federation considers the signing on 12 September of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan to be very significant. What is most important is that the South Sudanese parties showed a willingness to compromise and a desire to settle their differences. We would again like to pay tribute to the coordinated mediation efforts of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which initiated and ensured the resulting productive negotiations in Khartoum between June and August, as well as the signing of documents that were crucial to the peace process.
We greatly appreciate the ongoing personal contribution by President Omer Al-Bashir of the Sudan to the peace Agreement. We note that the regional actors involved have continued to maintain their united approach to the settlement in South Sudan, which is essential to the future progress of the peace process.
We welcome the desire of the Agreement’s guarantors to assist in its implementation by providing national contingents from the Sudan, Uganda, Djibouti and Somalia to the Regional Protection Force. We see that as an example of the realization in practice of the principle of African solutions to African problems, as well as an opportunity for effective cooperation between the United Nations, its Security Council and regional organizations.
We are aware of the recent contacts that have taken place between the Chiefs of Staff of the IGAD countries on issues related to the implementation of the Agreement, and we are ready to consider substantive proposals from IGAD regarding the Regional Protection Force. We welcome the considerable progress that we are beginning to see in implementing the Agreement, including in that regard the formation and launch of the operations of the structures and mechanisms provided for in the Agreement.
We consider it important that there has been a considerable drop in the level of violence and the numbers of human rights violations since the Agreement was signed.
We have noted the intention of opposition leader Riek Machar to return to Juba at the beginning of 2019 at the latest. We join the Secretary-General in his call to the South Sudanese parties to finalize their agreements on cantonment, the reintegration of former combatants and other security-related issues.
In our view, it is only the full and comprehensive implementation of the commitments that have been made that can help to increase the trust between the parties and prevent them from repeating the mistakes that occurred during the settlement process in South Sudan in the past.
