Security Council: Meetings Coverage

In a presidential statement adopted today, the Security Council expressed concern at the deterioration of stability in parts of Central Africa, particularly in the Central African Republic, as well as maritime insecurity in the Gulf of Guinea, and called upon all stakeholders to increase cooperation to challenge the threat of the Lord’s Resistance Army and other armed groups.

Honouring those who “demonstrate exceptional courage in the face of extreme danger” today, the Security Council created a first-of-its-kind medal named after a Senegalese military officer who lost his life while serving with the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) in 1994.

With the sharp and drastic deterioration of the human rights situation in South Sudan, and the accompanying spiral of revenge killings, the country was at risk of a wide-spread humanitarian crisis, the United Nations human rights chief told the Security Council today.

The situation in parts of eastern and southern Ukraine had seen “further severe deterioration”, with fresh events — including the downing of two helicopters — threatening to destabilize the country and the region, the Under-Secretary General for Political Affairs told the Security Council today.

The “emerging spirit of compromise” of the 17 April Joint Geneva Statement on Ukraine appeared to have evaporated amid different interpretations of the document and fresh violence in the eastern and southern parts of the country, including the shooting of a local mayor, the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs told the Security Council today.

With the nine-month-long peace negotiations between them suspended, Israelis and Palestinians should reflect on whether they wished to live up to their stated commitment to a two-State solution, the Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process told the Security Council today.

The Security Council today decided to modify the sanctions regime imposed on Côte d’Ivoire for a period ending on 30 April 2015, and to extend the mandate of the Group of Experts tasked with monitoring those measures until 20 May 2015.

The Security Council today extended the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) until 30 April 2015.

The Security Council capped its open debate on security sector reform today with the adoption of its first stand-alone resolution on the topic, reaffirming the importance of such reform in stabilizing countries recovering from conflict and resolving to prioritize reform aspects in both peacekeeping and special political mission mandates.