Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations

Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations

Explanation of vote by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia after UNSC vote on a draft resolution on renewal of South Sudan's sanctions regime (put forward by the United States)

Mme.President, 

Russia abstained on the draft resolution on renewal of South Sudan’s sanctions regime that was put forward by the United States.

We believe the document does not provide sufficient sanctions relief. We regret that the American sponsors of the resolution remained so fixated on the sanctions paradigm that they were not able to accommodate the needs of this young state as far as revisiting the arms embargo or at least to convene a constructive discussion of the key provisions of the draft and concrete proposals for amendment of those provisions. Thereby the draft ignored the consolidated position of African states, as well as the approaches of some other Security Council members, including my country.

There is no denying that at this point, South Sudan needs assistance in strengthening its emerging armed forces that may become an effective solution to the problem of inter-communal violence and a guarantor of a successful vote that is planned for December 2024. Over the past year, South Sudan has achieved considerable progress in implementing the benchmarks of UNSC resolution 2577, which was recognized in the report of the UN assessment team. We believe it would be unfair to cite the alarming situation in the neighboring Sudan as a pretext for the lack of tangible progress on the South Sudanese sanctions file.

We are convinced that instead of holding African states under sanctions for decades, we should help them overcome the standing security challenges, which is unthinkable in the absence of effective, well trained and well equipped national forces. The benchmarks were never meant to become an “iron curtain” in the way of lifting the sanctions.

On a general point, we think that the system of sanctions regimes on the African continent that has become dated in many respects, needs to be revisited and reformed. What raises particular concern is that in many African states, South Sudan included, Western states use sanctions regimes in order to exert pressure or even interfere in internal affairs. This is supplemented by illegal unilateral restrictive measures that run counter to the international law and exacerbate socio-economic situations in these countries. They also undermine efforts (i.a. by Security Council) in the area of peacebuilding. This is exactly why our delegation proposed to include in the resolution a paragraph to recognize the detrimental effect of such measures on post-conflict recovery, and also a call to keep from using such measures against countries that are under the UNSC sanctions. We regret that the US penholders turned down our constructive language, despite strong support by China and the “African troika”. We intend to promote this provision with regard to other UNSC sanctions regimes.

Thank you.

Video of the statement