Security Council


SC/9724
Seeking to determine the future direction of peacekeeping at a time of growing complexity in United Nations operations, coupled with growing demand and scarce resources, the Security Council today continued its discussion of practical steps to “improve the preparation, planning, monitoring and evaluation, and completion” of peacekeeping missions.
Ahead of the Security Council’s adoption of a groundbreaking resolution on children and armed conflict, the top United Nations official on the issue, Radhika Coomaraswamy, and Claude Heller, Permanent Representative of Mexico, today hailed the resolution as a major step forward in the fight against impunity for crimes against children.
SC/9723
With “a new sense of optimism and energy spreading” among the Iraqi people, as the overall level of violence in their country began to decrease and as “promising moves” towards political reconciliation got under way, the newly appointed United Nations envoy told the Security Council today that the world body’s peacekeeping Mission in Iraq should begin expanding its focus to economic recovery, social development and political stabilization.
The Security Council would meet this afternoon to adopt a resolution on children and armed conflict and it would renew by month’s end the mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) set to expire on 31 August, John Sawers, Council President for August and the Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations, said today during a Headquarters news conference.
Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Somalia, said at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon that the Security Council was in closed-door meetings to discuss possible new sanctions against leaders of armed groups in Somalia, and perhaps Eritrea, and that tackling impunity was the next major concern in Somalia.