Security Council: Meetings Coverage

An hour before it was due to go into effect, the Security Council today endorsed the cessation of hostilities agreement aimed at ending five years of bloodshed in Syria.

The most important elements of the Security Council’s work in February were still to come, speakers said during the 15-member organ’s monthly “wrap-up” meeting today.

The Security Council extended the mandate of the United Nations Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Guinea-Bissau (UNIOGBIS) for one year today, amid a political crisis in that country and ahead of the Council’s visit to West Africa in March.

Welcoming the nationwide ceasefire agreement due to take effect in Syria on Saturday, the United Nations humanitarian chief described the development today as a long-awaited, optimistic sign for millions suffering in the war-torn country.

The Security Council today extended for one year its sanctions on those threatening stability in Yemen, as well as the mandate of the Panel of Experts assisting the committee charged with overseeing those measures.

Member States and the United Nations must stop viewing peacebuilding solely as a post-conflict activity and focus more on coordinated programming and funding to prevent war and relapse into conflict, speakers in the Security Council said today.

Since the outbreak of war in 2013, both sides in South Sudan had engaged in actions that met criteria for the imposition of targeted sanctions, the Security Council heard today, as senior United Nations officials offered rare frontline views into the violence gripping the country and stunted progress towards the formation of a Transitional Government of National Unity.

The Israeli-Palestinian-Israeli conflict had reached a pivotal point, and with no signs of an end to the violence that erupted in October, the onus was on both sides to shape their future before the opponents of peace decided their fate for them, the Secretary-General’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process told the Security Council today.

The Chair of the “751/1907” Somalia-Eritrea Sanctions Committee provided an update to the Security Council today on the recent findings of its Monitoring Group, as delegates called for improved coordination to staunch the illegal charcoal trade in Somalia, and pressed Eritrea for “frank and sincere” cooperation over its reported involvement in the Yemen conflict, support for armed groups in Ethiopia and progress on the question of Djibouti war prisoners.

The security situation in Yemen had deteriorated since the first round of peace talks two months ago, the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy told the Security Council today, stressing that a new cessation of hostilities and spirit of compromise would pave the way for a fresh round of talks and agreements on the country’s return to a peaceful and orderly transition.