UN / SWEDEN PRESSER

On the last day of Sweden’s presidency of the Security Council, Ambassador Olof Skoog said it wasn’t “all dark” and remarked “there’s been some very significant positive things happening this month,” including on the Ethiopia-Eritrea situation, the diplomatic efforts between north and south Korea, and the Colombia peace process. UNIFEED

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:02:46
• Production Date: 31 July 2018
• Asset Language: English
• Corporate Name: SECURITY COUNCIL
• Subject Topical: NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT; PEACE AND SECURITY; PEACE PROCESS
• Geographic Subject: COLOMBIA; ERITREA; ETHIOPIA; KOREAN PENINSULA
• MAMS Id: 2211007
• Parent Id: 2211007
• Alternate Title: unifeed180731e

Description

STORY: UN / SWEDEN PRESSER
TRT: 02:42
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS

DATELINE: 31 JULY 2018, NEW YORK CITY / RECENT

Shotlist

FILE – RECENT, NEW YORK CITY

1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations headquarters

19 JULY 2018, NEW YORK CITY

2. Wide shot, Ambassador Olof Skoog at the dais
3. Med shot, journalists
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Olof Skoog, Permanent Representative of Sweden to the United Nations:
“It isn’t all dark. There’s been some very significant positive things happening this month, no credit to us, but the Ethiopia-Eritrea situation has all of a sudden taken a completely new positive turn. The diplomatic efforts in DPRK between north and south Korea, but also with the Americans and North Korea is, you know, maybe from one day to the other we don’t see the success, but if we just look back six months and see where we are today, there is at least a lot of very serious countries and peoples giving diplomacy a chance. And the final list there is Colombia, I think, where there is a very up to now a successful, but not completed peace agreement.”
5. Med shot, journalist
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Olof Skoog, Permanent Representative of Sweden to the United Nations:
“We had given up on real efforts to resolve that situation. It’s been there for 20 years. And shouldn’t we then when there is this very bold, historic leader coming in, in this case in Ethiopia, just changing the paradigm in favour of peace, shouldn’t we just devote this General Assembly to give him the most prominent speakers place so that we can really reflect on, and other leaders can hear, why did he take that decision, what has it meant to his country, because I think the example that he is setting is such. There is so many other countries that invest so much time in just defining why they need to be opposed to their neighbour. And if we could turn that energy instead into seeing, you know, what if we invest all that money, all that diplomacy, all that military build-up in looking at what a peaceful existence could look like.”
7. Med shot, journalists
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Olof Skoog, Permanent Representative of Sweden to the United Nations:
“Actually, a lot of exciting stuff going on between north and south Korea in particular, there is I believe less progress on the general denuclearization effort that the United States is most involved in. So, I just don’t think it’s time to rock the boat right now. I think what the Council has been doing has been successful in terms of promoting diplomacy, and so I think we just need to stay the course right now and hope that there’ll be, you know, constructive follow up to the Singapore Summit.”
9. Med shot, journalist
10. Zoom out, dais

Storyline

On the last day of Sweden’s presidency of the Security Council, Ambassador Olof Skoog today (31 Jul) said it wasn’t “all dark” and remarked “there’s been some very significant positive things happening this month,” including on the Ethiopia-Eritrea situation, the diplomatic efforts between north and south Korea, and the Colombia peace process.

On Ethiopia and Eritrea, which have reconciled after 20 years of conflict, Skoog said the situation “has all of a sudden taken a completely new positive turn,” at a point when the international community, “had given up” on finding a solution.

Speaking about Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, Skoog said “shouldn’t we then when there is this very bold, historic leader coming in, in this case in Ethiopia, just changing the paradigm in favour of peace, shouldn’t we just devote this General Assembly to give him the most prominent speakers place so that we can really reflect on, and other leaders can hear, why did he take that decision, what has it meant to his country, because I think the example that he is setting is such.”

On the situation in the Korean Peninsula, the Swedish Ambassador said, “a lot of exciting stuff going on between north and south Korea in particular, there is I believe less progress on the general denuclearization effort that the United States is most involved in.”

Regarding Security Council involvement in the negotiations, he said “I just don’t think it’s time to rock the boat right now. I think what the Council has been doing has been successful in terms of promoting diplomacy, and so I think we just need to stay the course right now and hope that there’ll be, you know, constructive follow up to the Singapore Summit.”