Describing reports of severe suffering, starvation and indiscriminate attacks on civilians amid the ongoing fighting in Syria, humanitarian officials briefed the Security Council today, offering glimpses of hope while urging sustained action to end the six-year-long conflict in that country.
The Security Council extended the mandate of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) until 31 July 2017 today, while encouraging the divided island nation’s leaders to “grasp the current opportunity” of recent progress in negotiations to secure a comprehensive settlement of the dispute between them.
Heavy fighting in Yemen — notably around Sana’a, Taiz and the border with Saudi Arabia — was all the more tragic because a viable peace proposal was within reach of both parties to the conflict there, the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy told the Security Council today, while pressing both sides to demonstrate the political courage needed to stop the nearly two-year-long war.
Opening their eleventh session today, members of the Peacebuilding Commission’s Organizational Committee elected that body’s 2017 Bureau and the Chairs of its country-specific configurations, in addition to discussing its goals for the coming year.
The General Assembly concluded its high-level dialogue on sustainable development and sustaining peace today with its President underscoring the need to take the debate beyond the halls of the United Nations while reforming the Organization with the active support of its Member States.
Emphasizing the inextricable link between sustainable development and sustaining peace — “two agendas that stand or fall together” — speakers at a high-level General Assembly dialogue today urged a holistic response to the world’s many intertwined challenges, from economic inequality to violent extremism and beyond.
Expressing its concerns over the prevalence of violent extremism that could be conducive to terrorism, the Security Council strongly condemned all terrorist attacks in West Africa, notably those carried out by Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin.
The Security Council endorsed today the decisions of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union to recognize Adama Barrow as President-elect of the Gambia.
Delegates in the Security Council today called for the continued implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran’s nuclear programme, praising the historic accord as a significant diplomatic achievement that had made the world a safer place in the first year of its performance.
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.
