Security Council: No name

Welcoming the 7 February official announcement of the Southern Sudan referendum’s final results, which showed 98.83 per cent of voters choosing independence, the Security Council called today on the international community to lend its full support to all Sudanese people as they built a peaceful and prosperous future.

Security Council members welcomed today the European Union’s work to help realize United Nations peace and security goals in a wide range of situations around the world, following a briefing by the regional organization’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Surveying a few of those situations, Catherine Ashton emphasized that security, development and democracy, good governance and respect for human rights were all interlinked.

The following Security Council press statement was issued today by Council President Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti (Brazil):

Despite progress in consolidating stability in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, international support must be maintained to end violence against civilians and facilitate upcoming elections, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative in that country told the Security Council in a briefing today.

While presiding over the Security Council in February, Brazil’s emphasis would be on the relationship between security and development, with the aim of evolving a more comprehensive approach to issues of peace and security, the country’s Permanent Representative said at a Headquarters press conference today as she outline the programme of work for the month.

While early indications of a week’s worth of balloting pointed to an overwhelming vote in favour of Southern Sudan’s secession, senior United Nations officials expressed deep concern in the Security Council today over renewed violence in North and South Darfur, and issued a stern warning that violence remained an “ever present threat” in the disputed, oil-rich border area of Abyei, absent a permanent settlement of its status.

As pirates tightened their grip in the waters off the Somali coast and surrounding Indian Ocean, the Secretary-General’s top adviser on the legal issues related to that menace proposed a series of far-reaching measures to the Security Council today on how to lift the legal constraints to prosecute and imprison the pirates and criminalize their sea-borne raids in all States.

On 22 January 2011, the Security Council Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee approved the deletion (de-listing) of the two entries specified below from its Consolidated List.

The following Security Council press statement was issued today by Council President Ivan Barbalić (Bosnia and Herzegovina):

Stressing that institution-building was a critical part of peacebuilding in countries emerging from conflict, the Security Council acknowledged today the need to continue improving its support for those countries in order to sustain peace by creating national bodies that would promote democratic processes and socio-economic development.