Explanation of Vote by Deputy Permanent Representative Anna Evstigneeva at the UNSC Vote on Sanctions Against al-Shabaab
Madam President,
I would like to begin by extending our gratitude to the Chinese delegation for their skillful presidency of the Security Council during the very tense month of February, and we wish the delegation of Denmark every success in March.
The Russian Federation supported the UNSC resolution on sanctions against the terrorist group al-Shabab drafted by the UK.
We believe it was reasonable to introduce in the resolution provisions that are geared at strengthening financial control in Somalia. Such measures are needed to curb the resource supply to al-Shabaab and to undermine the ability of this organization to carry out illicit economic activities.
We are pleased to see that the draft resolution contains elements that meet the aspirations of the Somalian side with regard to the upcoming review of the sanctions regime under discussion today, this regime has been in effect since January 1992. We are convinced that this step is long overdue. In this regard, we have consistently supported the course by the African members of the Security Council (A3) to shorten the length of extensions for inspection regime and that for the mandate of the relevant Panel of Experts (PoE) in order to have an opportunity to discuss a possible review of the arms embargo and other parameters already this year. We would like to assure our Somalian friends that they can count on our support when these issues come up for consideration in December.
We welcome the restrictions on the access to arms acquisitions by non-State actors, which was introduced in the draft thanks to the efforts of the A3. In December 2023, we already pointed out the flawed language of Security Council resolution 2713, as it contained provisions on the automatic exemptions from the sanction regime for arms supply to private security companies – the names of these companies we still fail to know.
Specifically, we would like to emphasize that when the document was drafted, our proposal was not taken into account – namely, we proposed to focus the parameters of the regime solely on countering Al-Shabaab, without introducing any alien elements to this. We are convinced that the Yemeni issue needs to be considered separately. And we have every opportunity to do this within the regime established pursuant to Security Council resolution 2140.
In the materials submitted by the PoE, we see no convincing evidence that the supposed systematic flow of weapons between Yemen and Somalia really takes place. Other delegations share these doubts as well. This clearly shows that introducing this paragraph in the resolution has nothing to do with extending assistance to Somalia. Quite the contrary, what we have here is the intent of an individual UNSC member to politicize this issue for many years to come, and thus to advance their own interests in a neighboring region through a resolution on how to counter Al-Shabaab. This is being done inter alia using penholders of the Somalian file. Such a stance vis-à-vis Somalia is simply irresponsible.
We would also like to point out the significant impact by African delegations and Guyana in drafting the document. We are convinced that the Council should pay greater attention to the positions expressed by African States, especially when it comes to defining the parameters of the sanctions regimes applied against terrorists that are active in their territories.
Thank you.
