Security Council: Meetings Coverage

Strongly urging the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders to increase the momentum in the United Nations-backed talks aimed at reunifying the divided island nation, the Security Council today extended through mid-December the world body’s long-running peacekeeping operation in Cyprus.

Security Council diplomats today reported to the 15-nation body on their just-concluded eight-day mission to Africa, which included stops in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, where they met with senior African Union officials, as well as Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Liberia.

Bosnia and Herzegovina continued to make progress toward “a peaceful, viable State, irreversibly on course for our European integration”, but was hampered in that effort by divisive partisan rhetoric, Valentin Inzko, High Representative for the Balkan country told the Security Council today.

The Chairs of the three committees created by the Security Council to enforce its counter-terrorism measures and related sanctions stressed today that coordination between the panels, regular “stocktaking” of their working methods, and strong backing from United Nations Member States were of key importance in ensuring effective and efficient implementation of their respective mandates.

Condemning the recent resurgence in fighting in Somalia, the Security Council today authorized the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) peacekeeping force there to maintain its existing mandate until 31 January 2010.

The Security Council this afternoon condemned the recent renewal in fighting in Somalia led by Al-Shabaab and other extremists, which constituted an attempt to remove the legitimate Transitional Federal Government there, and demanded that opposition groups immediately end their offensive, put down their arms, renounce violence and join reconciliation efforts.

The international community had a “unique opportunity” to help the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia establish peace and security, speakers emphasized today as the Security Council heard a series of briefings on the situation in that country by senior United Nations officials.

The Security Council reiterated today its call for renewed and urgent efforts by the parties and the international community to achieve a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East, based on the vision of a region where two democratic States, Israel and Palestine, would live side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders.

The Security Council today condemned the renewed military incursions in eastern Chad of Chadian armed groups, coming from outside, and demanded that rebel armed groups cease the violence immediately.

One year ago, exactly, Lebanon had been taken “to the brink of civil war and back”, Terje Roed-Larsen told the Security Council today, but, since then, thanks to an agreement between Lebanese political leaders brokered by the Emir of Qatar, the country’s domestic, political and security situation “has improved markedly”.