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8293rd Security Council Meeting: Maintenance of International Peace and Security Part 2
Security Council members, particularly those with permanent seats, must overcome their differences and unite to tackle a complex web of conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa, speakers said during a day-long debate in which several Member States suggested the creation of a regional mechanism — styled on the 1975 Helsinki Final Act — to foster dialogue and build trust.
Convened by the Russian Federation, Council President for June, the debate — on the theme “Maintaining international peace and security: comprehensive review of the situation in the Middle East and North Africa” — saw delegates of the 15-nation organ and regional Member States reflect on the root causes of the area’s conflicts from a wider perspective and exploring ways to jointly tackle them.
António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, in a briefing that set the stage for the discussion, said many fault lines were at work in the region, crossing each other and generating enormous volatility. Surveying its many flashpoints, he said the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remained central to the Middle East quagmire, with the two-State solution remaining the only viable option — a view shared by many of today’s speakers. He suggested that Middle East and North African countries find platforms akin to the Helsinki process during the cold war to talk and cooperate. At the same time, countries in the region must ensure the integrity of the State, governance systems and equal application of the rule of law. Concluding, he called on Council members to find much-needed consensus and act with one voice.
In the ensuing debate, speakers turned the spotlight on the Israeli-Palestinian and Syrian conflicts, giving attention also to the fluid situations in Yemen, Libya, Iraq and Lebanon.
The observer for the State of Palestine said that the tragedy inflicted on her people remained a source of anger and despair. “The sense of injustice has only intensified,” she said, expressing concern for the Council’s decline of authority. The protracted nature of the conflict, due to a lack of accountability for Israel’s crimes, had weakened international norms, while the human cost had been immense. Those who dismissed those facts only fueled tensions and conflict, she said, emphasizing that the Council had a duty to remedy the situation and achieve global peace, staring by addressing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Israel’s delegate said Iran had played a central role in destabilizing the region, with its nuclear activities posing the most dangerous threat to international peace and security. Iran had a violent and extremist regime with violent and extremist intentions, he said, adding that no civilian, community or country in the Middle East could be spared from Iran’s hegemonic ambitions to devour its neighbours. The world was facing a regime that could not be trusted, as Iran remained the foremost State-sponsor of terrorism in the world, he added.
Iran’s representative said the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian lands was at the core and central to all the region’s conflicts. Any foreign intervention and occupation had resulted in instability which served as a breeding ground for terrorists and extremist groups. “The experience gained during the past decade in the Middle East and North Africa region proves that the era of regional and global hegemony has long passed, and any effort by any Power to achieve it is futile,” he said.
The representative of Syria attributed the international crises of the last several decades to the policies of certain Governments that enjoyed significant economic and financial leverage. Those Governments, included in the Council, had fabricated crises and wars to serve their interests. “They claimed that bloody revolutions are multicoloured and rainbow revolutions,” he said, adding that for the past eight years, Syria had suffered through the world’s worst crisis in decades. Some Governments had even politicized humanitarian assistance and falsified evidence fabricating Syria’s use of chemical weapons, he stated.
The representative of the United States, drawing attention to air strikes in Syria over the weekend, said the Russian Federation had the ability to stop escalation in the Middle East “as we speak”. Washington, D.C., had often said the missing ingredient for peace were leaders like Egypt’s former President Anwar Sadat, who stepped forward, acknowledged hard truths and made compromise, he added. A further cause of conflict was the role of Iran and Hizbullah. “These are the roots of conflict in the Middle East,” he said, tied together with people’s lack of voice in their own governance.
The representative of Egypt said the Council’s selective approach to the Middle East had only fostered instability. “Ignoring the Palestinian question is helping some parties to exploit it,” he said. He added that Egypt would consider the establishment of an institutional regional dialogue mechanism, like the Helsinki process, and proposed that the Secretary-General invite regional States to a conference — with participation by permanent Council members — to negotiate a Middle East nuclear-weapons-free zone.
Ethiopia’s speaker said that in the absence of genuine and meaningful dialogue and negotiation, achieving a peaceful and comprehensive settlement to the disputes in the region would continue to be unachievable. The 15-nation organ had a critical role to play, yet “we all know that this Council has been effectively paralysed and its dysfunction has seriously undermined its credibility,” he said. No longer was it a place for dialogue and compromise, but rather it had become a platform for scoring points and grandstanding among major Powers.
The representative of the United Arab Emirates said that “diplomacy has failed in the Middle East,” adding, however, that negotiation would always be vital to resolving conflict and urging that it be strengthened. Member States must support like-minded countries of the moderate Arab centre, she said, emphasizing that true stability would require Arab leadership. The era of hegemony and power politics must be replaced by respect for the nation State system — and for that to happen, the Council must play the role of neutral steward for peace and security.
Also speaking today were senior officials and representatives of the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, China, France, United Kingdom, Côte d’Ivoire, Bolivia, Netherlands, Peru, Poland, Equatorial Guinea, Kuwait, Sweden, Pakistan, Italy, Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Bahrain and Iraq, as well as the League of Arab States, the Holy See, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the European Union.
The meeting began at 11:07 a.m. and ended at 4:51 p.m.
