A car bomb that killed more than 50 people at a military base in Gao this morning was a stark reminder of the multiple obstacles hobbling Mali’s ongoing peace process, the head of United Nations peacekeeping told the Security Council today.
Divisive positions among Israelis and Palestinians following last month’s adoption of resolution 2334 (2016) risked destroying the prospects for peace, the Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process told the Security Council today, stressing that both sides must create the conditions for launching direct final-status negotiations.
On 13 January 2017, the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1591 (2005) concerning the Sudan issued the following Implementation Assistance Notice.
Amid a “rising tide of democracy” across the African continent, the United Nations must continue to support regional efforts to ensure that the Gambia’s recent election results were upheld, stressed the Organization’s senior official in West Africa and the Sahel as he briefed the Security Council this morning.
In a push to dislodge entrenched positions around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Security Council ended 2016 by adopting the first of its resolutions in more than three decades to target settlements, capping a year of intermittent divisions and contentious debate over how and even whether to intervene in the world’s fiercest conflicts, from Syria and Yemen in the Middle East to the Central African Republic, Mali and South Sudan in Africa.
Despite the gains made against Boko Haram by countries in the Lake Chad Basin region, the extremist group remained a threat, carrying out asymmetric attacks against civilians, senior United Nations officials told the Security Council today, stressing that only a concerted international approach would help repair the material and social damage inflicted on communities.
Despite a significant decrease in armed conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region, civilians remained exposed to violence and criminality, while long-term comprehensive solutions to address the needs of the region’s 2.6 million displaced persons remained elusive, said the United Nations peacekeeping chief as he briefed the Security Council this morning.
Despite a host of challenges, the Government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP) remained determined to ensure the successful implementation of the new peace agreement, the Head of the United Nations Mission in Colombia told the Security Council today.
The following Security Council press statement was issued today by Council President Olof Skoog (Sweden):
The Security Council must continue to call on all political actors in the Democratic Republic of Congo to endorse the country’s new peace agreement, reached on 31 December 2016 under the auspices of the National Episcopal Conference of the Congo, stressed the United Nations peacekeeping chief as he briefed the 15-member body this morning.
