Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations

Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations

Statement by First Deputy Permanent Representative Dmitry Polyanskiy at the UN Security Council Meeting on Peace and Security in Africa

Mr. President,

We welcome Mr.Alpha Barry, Foreign Minister of Burkina Faso at this meeting. We thank Assistant Secretary-General for Africa Bintou Keita and other briefers for the information they shared.

We agree with the alarming assessments of the situation in the Sahel that we heard today. Security threats in this part of Africa have reached an unprecedentedly high level. The geography of terrorist activity is expanding, extremist ideology wins new adepts.

Attacks on religious shrines and other “outings” of extremists and terrorists cause our particular concern. The roots of these phenomena are well established. In Sahel we “reap the fruit” of ruined statehood in Libya, which resulted from a coarse foreign interference. We believe without normalization in this country – many of our interlocutors told us about it as the Security Council was on a trip to Mali and Burkina Faso – it will be almost impossible to achieve reliable stabilization in the region.

We welcome the initiative of G5 Sahel to establish Joint Force to counter terrorism and organized crime. It appears that over a short period the Joint Force has become an important element of regional security. We welcome the news that in January 2019 the Joint Force resumed activities in all areas of its responsibility and that its deployment level has reached 75%.

Of course, there is much work ahead. The last year terrorist attack against the Headquarters of the Joint Force made it realize its weak sides. As we understand, lessons were learned and error analysis accomplished.

Full-fledged functioning of G5 Sahel surely depends on stable and predictable financing. We see that funds foreign donors promised to allocate are now coming to the region. However, not everyone who has taken on such obligations manages to meet them on time. Basically, we stand ready to consider assigning funds for the operation of the Joint Force from the UN regular budget.

We believe further coordinated steps from both Africans and international community aimed at countering terrorism in Sahara-Sahel region are vital. It is self-evident, that this evil cannot be eradicated only by military measures. We share concerns of our friends from Equatorial Guinea about the excessive militarization of the region.

We have to effectively counter the spread of extremist ideology, embark on solving the urgent social and economic issues, strengthen state institutions, respect human rights.

Russia closely monitors the development of the situation in the region. We already provide relevant military and technical assistance to a number of countries, train police and military staff. In general, we expect that the armed forces of G5 Sahel will soon become an effective tool to restore and maintain peace in West Africa.

Thank you.