Security Council

After extending the mandate of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) until 15 March 2018, the Security Council today endorsed a new initiative to revitalize the stalled peace plan for the strife-torn country.

Despite some positive developments in Central Africa, the overall situation still required concerted action at all levels to address sociopolitical tensions, economic difficulties and abuses by armed groups, the Secretary‑General’s Special Representative to the region told the Security Council today.

Describing “the most heartbreaking and horrific” accounts of sexual atrocities against girls and women in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, the Special Representative of the Secretary‑General for Sexual Violence in Conflict told the Security Council today that every woman or girl she had spoken with had either endured brutal assault or had witnessed sexual violence, including seeing women literally being raped to death.

The International Criminal Court’s entire judicial machinery could be frustrated unless the suspects it had indicted appeared before it, the institution’s Chief Prosecutor cautioned the Security Council today, as members discussed different approaches concerning the arrest warrants issued by the Court in the case of Darfur, western Sudan.

Amid the security challenges arising from the ballistic missile and nuclear testing activities of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, it was critical to address the dire human rights and humanitarian situation in that country as well, senior United Nations officials told the Security Council today.

The abiding position of the United Nations on Jerusalem was that the city remained a final status issue to be determined through a comprehensive, just and lasting solution to be negotiated between the two sides concerned on the basis of relevant United Nations resolutions and other agreements, the Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process told the Security Council today.

Members of the Security Council were briefed this morning by the Chairs of various subsidiary bodies, who reported on the Committees’ activities on such matters as counter‑terrorism efforts and the sanctions regimes in a range of countries from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Yemen.

The Security Council concluded today that all the measures imposed in its resolutions 1958 (2010) and 2335 (2016) pursuant to Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations in relation to the Iraq oil-for-food programme had been fully implemented.

Nearly five years after parties signed the cooperation framework for the Great Lakes region, the Security Council reiterated today its call for States to abide by the commitment to non‑interference in the internal affairs of neighbours and the prohibition against abetting armed groups or war criminals.

The following Security Council press statement was issued today by Council President Koro Bessho (Japan):