Statement by First Deputy Permanent Representative Dmitry Polyanskiy at UN Security Council Meeting on
Mr. President,
We are thankful to Special Representative of the Secretary-General to the African Union Hanna Tetteh and UN Permanent Observer for African Union Fatima Mohammed.
In September, Secretary-General of the United Nations issued a regular report on UN interaction with the pan-African organization and on activities of UN Office to the African Union, which we studied very carefully.
We fully support its commitment to strengthen strategic cooperation on peace and security in Africa. Challenges that exist for the continent and international community make us consolidate our efforts and employ comparative advantages of regional organizations. Africans have intensified action in this area, i.a. by means of building continent-wide peace and security architecture, which we welcome. We are convinced that we can respond to security challenges effectively if we use the approach “African solution to African problems”.
We proceed from the assumption, that UN interaction with regional organizations should rest on Chapter 8 of the UN Charter. Every concrete case requires a tailor-made scenario for crisis settlement that should meet the local specifics. We believe in the majority of cases regionals have a better knowledge of the situation in the area of their responsibility. At the same time, and taking into account the role of the Council in maintaining international peace and security, we do not think that the Council should completely disassociate itself from solving the continent’s problems and leave them to African organizations.
We realize that our African partners are concerned about material supplies for African peacekeeping operations. It is important to continue efforts to increase predictability, reliability, and flexibility with regard to financing African operations and joint missions. We stand ready to engage in constructive dialogue to prepare a SC resolution on African peacekeeping.
We have noted that report by the Secretary-General paid much attention to the initiative of silencing the guns in Africa by 2020. We fully support this commitment. We welcome the decision of the African Union Assembly to proclaim 2020 a year of this initiative.
We believe there is a vast potential of increasing the profile of cooperation between the Security Council of the United Nations and the Peace and Security Council of the African Union. There is a good opportunity to make sure that we are on the same page, to harmonize agendas and efforts of the two organizations, which is annual Joint Consultative meetings of the two Councils. One of those regular sessions took place in Addis Ababa last week. I would like to avail of this opportunity to say words of gratitude to the African Union for their warm welcoming. We also believe the trip to Juba (it was organized on the eve of the meetings that were held in the capital of Ethiopia) had been very useful. We expect that the discussions we had will help all sides implement South Sudan peace agreement.
Mr. President,
In conclusion, let me emphasize that promotion of relations with African countries and their regional organizations is a priority of Russia’s foreign policy.
We have close or similar positions on many issues on regional and global agenda. First of its kind summit “Russia-Africa” that was held in Sochi last week clearly demonstrated this.
We are committed to give practical implementation to the summit’s decisions, i.a. with regard to establishing a permanent mechanism of dialogue partnership, and boosting mutually beneficial cooperation with states and regional organizations of the continent. We hope both countries and regional associations of Africa will support us in this aspiration.
Thank you.
