The year 2021 began with “a degree of guarded optimism” for progress towards the settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict, the United Nations mediator for the Middle East peace told the Security Council today, citing renewed international efforts to broker direct peace negotiations and cooperation between the two sides, including in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Recent progress towards peace and democracy in Libya has demonstrated that once seemingly insurmountable divisions can be overcome with determined political will, the United Nations top official for that country told the Security Council today, citing the successful launch of the Government of National Unity.
The Security Council expressed its deep concern today at the political and multiple other protracted crises in Haiti, urging stakeholders to set aside their differences and calling upon them to prepare for free, fair, transparent and credible presidential elections later in 2021.
Six months into Afghanistan’s latest round of peace talks, progress remains slow and demands strong support from the global community, the senior United Nations official in the country told the Security Council today, while also sounding alarm about soaring rates of violence that continue to hamper humanitarian efforts and erode public confidence more broadly.
On 23 March 2021, the Security Council Committee pursuant to resolutions 1267 (1999), 1989 (2011) and 2253 (2015) concerning ISIL (Da’esh), Al‑Qaida and associated individuals, groups, undertakings and entities enacted the amendments specified with underline and strikethrough in the entries below on its ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaida Sanctions List of individuals and entities subject to the assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo set out in paragraph 1 of Security Council resolution 2368 (2017), and adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations.
The following Security Council press statement was issued today by Council President Linda Thomas-Greenfield (United States):
The conflict and humanitarian crisis in Yemen is taking a dramatic turn for the worse, with Houthi rebels pursuing a military offensive in Marib governorate alongside a surge in cross-border attacks on Saudi Arabia, but a renewed diplomatic commitment by the United States to end the six-year conflict offers a glimmer of hope that peace is still possible, senior United Nations officials told a videoconference meeting of the Security Council today.
On the tenth anniversary of the start of conflict in Syria, the senior United Nations official for that country expressed his profound regret that the world body has not yet been able to broker an end to the crisis, while calling for new, creative international diplomacy, during a Security Council videoconference meeting today.
Extending the mandate of the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS) until 15 March 2022, the Security Council demanded today that all parties to the conflict in that country and other armed actors immediately stop fighting and engage in political dialogue, in accordance with the peace agreement signed in 2018.
The Security Council today welcomed the vote of confidence by Libya’s House of Representatives to endorse the Cabinet of a new unified interim Government charged with leading the country up to elections.
