The Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process informed the Security Council today that he was particularly concerned as to the future of international collective efforts to achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians, pointing to a growing risk that parties could revert to more unilateral actions.
Opening its seventy‑first session today, the Trusteeship Council elected Anne Gueguen of France as its President and Jonathan Guy Allen of the United Kingdom as its Vice‑President.
The risk of an accidental escalation of tensions leading to conflict was being multiplied by misplaced overconfidence, dangerous narratives and rhetoric, as well as a lack of communication channels, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council today.
The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) took up the Secretary-General’s request today to the General Assembly for $636.6 million to support 34 special political missions during the biennium 2018-2019, with delegates seizing the opportunity to press for substantial changes to the way those missions — almost all of them the creation of the Security Council — were funded.
A draft Security Council resolution reiterating the special status of Jerusalem — and rejecting any attempts to declare Israel’s capital or to establish an embassy there — would likely be submitted as early as Monday, the Permanent Observer for the State of Palestine told the Palestinian Rights Committee today.
Reaffirming its commitment to the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and national unity of Libya, the Security Council today reiterated that the Libyan Political Agreement of 17 December 2015 remained the only viable framework to end the Libyan political crisis and that its implementation remained key to holding elections and finalizing the political transition.
After extending the mandate of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) until 15 March 2018, the Security Council today endorsed a new initiative to revitalize the stalled peace plan for the strife-torn country.
With the second stage of the drawdown of the African Union‑United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) set to begin in February 2018, delegates in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today took up the revised budget proposal for that Operation, stressing the importance of prioritizing post‑conflict reconstruction.
The new Mission to monitor Colombia’s historic peace agreement needed adequate funding to ensure it was as effective as the first operation in the country, delegates said as the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) took up the funding of special political missions in 2018.
Despite some positive developments in Central Africa, the overall situation still required concerted action at all levels to address sociopolitical tensions, economic difficulties and abuses by armed groups, the Secretary‑General’s Special Representative to the region told the Security Council today.
