Security Council: Meetings Coverage

The Security Council expressed concern today that terrorists can benefit from organized crime as a source of financing or logistical support through the trafficking of arms, persons, drugs, artefacts and cultural property.

The people of Colombia must focus on what unites them rather than what divides them, as they follow the path of peace and reconciliation under the 2016 peace agreement that ended the country’s civil conflict dating back to the mid-1960s, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative told the Security Council today.

Government officials, former rebel combatants, community leaders and other stakeholders all demonstrated their commitment to implementing the 2016 peace agreement that ended five decades of conflict in Colombia, the heads of a recent Security Council visiting mission to the South American country reported today.

The United Nations is paying greater attention to managing transitions during the drawdown and subsequent closure of its peace operations as they, if poorly handled, could reverse progress made, Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council today.

While a ceasefire in the key Yemeni port city of Hodeidah is holding, faster progress is needed to fully implement the 2018 Stockholm Agreement between the Government and the Houthi militia, the Security Council heard today, as briefers warned of the risks of the country being dragged into a regional conflict and a deterioration of a humanitarian crisis that is already the worst in the world.

The Security Council’s youth, peace and security agenda is beginning to make a difference for young people in conflict zones and other vulnerable situations, but much work remains to effectively incorporate their voices, energy and ideas into efforts to build and sustain peace, youth advocates told the 15-member organ today.

Delegates today called on a United Nations war crime court to complete the remaining judicial proceedings for atrocities committed in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, as the Security Council heard briefings from top officials of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT).

The United Nations hopes that after Parliamentary elections and the formation of a new Government in Ukraine, recent encouraging statements by its new President, Voldodymyr Zelensky, will be followed by concrete actions to bring a positive dynamic to implement the Minsk Protocol agreements, the Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs told the Security Council today.

The Security Council today decided to extend until 15 January 2020 the mandate of the United Nations political mission tasked with overseeing the ceasefire agreement reached in Stockholm on 13 December 2018 between the Government of Yemen and the Houthi militia in the city and port of Hodeidah.

Documentary, digital, testimonial and forensic evidence is now being collected to prosecute members of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da’esh) for their atrocity crimes committed in Iraq, the head of the United Nations investigation team reported today to the Security Council.