Security Council: Meetings Coverage

The Security Council extended the mandate of the United Nations Integrated Peacebuilding Office in the Central African Republic (BINUCA) for one year today, deciding also to expand sanctions imposed on individuals to include a travel ban and an assets freeze, and authorizing the deployment of a European Union intervention force in the country.

Important progress had been made in Côte d’Ivoire’s political reconciliation process, but security remained fragile, the head of the United Nations operation in that country told the Security Council today.

The Security Council today called upon all Member States to prevent terrorists from benefiting directly or indirectly from ransom payments or political concessions, and further, to secure the safe release of hostages.

The ongoing conflict in South Sudan could potentially undo efforts to resolve the crises in Darfur and, more broadly, efforts to normalize Sudan-South Sudan relations, the head of United Nations peacekeeping told the Security Council today.

The Security Council today welcomed the successful holding of peaceful and transparent legislative elections in Mali on 24 November and 15 December 2013, underlining that, in addition to the previously conducted presidential polls, they marked a further step towards restoring democratic governance and the full return of constitutional order in the West African country.

The Central African Republic was trapped in a “spiral of vengeance” that had destroyed the social fabric and undermined trust among communities for generations to come, senior United Nations officials told the Security Council today, calling for a stronger international response to alleviate the human suffering in that country.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today that 2014 would be decisive in helping Israelis and Palestinians draw back from a perilous and unsustainable status quo, pressing leaders on both sides to take “bold decisions and painful compromises” for peace or face perhaps the last attempt to salvage the two-State solution.

With Mali at a crossroads, the international community should continue to support efforts to steer the country away from a relapse into the conditions that had given rise to the “unprecedented crisis” of more than a year ago, the senior United Nations official in the West African country told the Security Council today.

Commending peacekeepers’ recent efforts to quell violence and help national armed forces defeat the 23 March Movement insurgency in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the commander of the United Nations Mission there said today that this year it must be more agile and active in the strife-torn eastern part of the country.

Deploring in the strongest terms recent events in Ramadi and Fallujah in Iraq’s Anbar Province, the Security Council today condemned the attacks by Al-Qaida affiliate, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, in an attempt to destabilize the country and the region.