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STORY: UN / PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES
TRT: 04:10
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / FRENCH / NATS
DATELINE: 23 JULY 2026, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior, United Nations Headquarters
23 JULY 2026, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, Security Council
3. Med shot, Secretary-General António Guterres addressing Council
4. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“Today, conflicts are increasing in number, complexity, length and scope. We see an alarming disregard for international law, impunity spreading, violations are going unanswered. Each violation unanswered becomes the next violations precedent. Trust is eroding and negotiated settlements are becoming harder to reach and maintain.”
5. Med shot, Guterres addressing Council
6. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“The situation is getting out of control. It's teetering on the edge of unimaginable. The region is being pulled into an ever-widening circle of confrontation. One crisis feeds another. One escalation triggers the next. As this dynamic spreads, the political objectives are becoming increasingly obscured by the confrontation itself.”
7. Med shot, Liberia, Pakistan and Panama delegates
8. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“Meanwhile in Gaza, despite the so-called ceasefire, civilians continue to pay a heavy price every day. People are being killed in their homes, in their communities and while carrying out ordinary acts of daily life as Israel increases its control of Gaza. At the same time, living conditions remain intolerable and horrific diseases are spreading, with humanitarian operations heavily impeded.”
9. Wide shot, Council
10. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“In the occupied West Bank, we see creeping annexation with violence, settlement expansion, extensive Israeli military operations and large-scale displacement. And in Ukraine, the Sahel, Sudan and many other places, conflict is inflicting enormous suffering, disrupting livelihoods and uprooting populations with dire humanitarian consequences. Resolution 2788 reminds us of a fundamental truth. Diplomacy may not have succeeded in preventing these conflicts, but it still holds the power to stop them.”
11. Wide shot, Council
19. SOUNDBITE (French) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“Geopolitical divisions are not a reason for inaction or abdication. Most situations on the Council's agenda are complex. The best path to peace is through compromise and finding common ground. I urge all members of this Council to summon the spirit of compromise that is essential to peace. Keep the channels of dialogue open and spare no effort in the pursuit of peaceful settlement of disputes, a founding principle of this organization.”
20. Wide shot, Council
21. SOUNDBITE (French) Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner, Minister for Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation and
Francophonie, Democratic Republic of the Congo:
“Resolutions are adopted, but they are not implemented in full. Sanctions are adopted, but the implementation is delayed or they are weakened. Monitoring mechanisms are weakened, although the violations continue. Demands for a ceasefire or for withdrawal are formulated, but the measures backing them up and not sufficiently robust to ensure that they are implemented. In other words, we do have the mechanisms on paper, but progressively they are losing the capacity to influence behaviour on the ground.”
22. Med shot, Guterres
23. SOUNDBITE (English) Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner, Minister for Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation and
Francophonie, Democratic Republic of the Congo:
“Lasting peace can never be achieved through the silencing of guns alone. It hinges on our collective capacity to prevent crises before they tip over into open conflict. The measure of the Security Council's credibility does not boil down to the number of resolutions that the Council adopts. Its credibility is measured by its ability to enact the mechanisms it establishes and to ensure decisions it takes a respected. We do have the instruments. Our collective responsibility is now to use them at an earlier stage, more systematically and more consistently, because the best resolution to a conflict is the one that would have prevented it from breaking out in the first place.”
24. Wide shot, Council
Secretary-General António Guterres today (23 Jul) told the Security Council that the situation in the Middle East “is getting out of control” and “teetering on the edge of unimaginable,” but stressed that “geopolitical divisions are not a reason for inaction or abdication.”
Addressing a high-level open debate on Strengthening the Mechanisms for the Peaceful Settlement of Disputes, the Secretary-General said, “conflicts are increasing in number, complexity, length and scope,” with increased disregard for international law, impunity, and violations are going unanswered.
He said, “each violation unanswered becomes the next violations precedent. Trust is eroding and negotiated settlements are becoming harder to reach and maintain.”
The Middle East region, Guterres said, “is being pulled into an ever-widening circle of confrontation. One crisis feeds another. One escalation triggers the next,” and “as this dynamic spreads, the political objectives are becoming increasingly obscured by the confrontation itself.”
In Gaza, he continued, “despite the so-called ceasefire, civilians continue to pay a heavy price every day. People are being killed in their homes, in their communities, and while carrying out ordinary acts of daily life as Israel increases its control.”
In the occupied West Bank, the Secretary-General said, “we see creeping annexation with violence, settlement expansion, extensive Israeli military operations and large-scale displacement,” while in Ukraine, the Sahel, Sudan and many other places, “conflict is inflicting enormous suffering, disrupting livelihoods and uprooting populations with dire humanitarian consequences.”
He said Security Council resolution 2788 “reminds us of a fundamental truth. Diplomacy may not have succeeded in preventing these conflicts, but it still holds the power to stop them.”
Resolution 2788, authored by Pakistan, requested the Secretary-General to provide, one year following the adoption of the resolution, concrete recommendations to further strengthen mechanisms for the peaceful settlement of disputes.
To conclude, Guterres said, “most situations on the Council's agenda are complex. The best path to peace is through compromise and finding common ground. I urge all members of this Council to summon the spirit of compromise that is essential to peace. Keep the channels of dialogue open and spare no effort in the pursuit of peaceful settlement of disputes, a founding principle of this organization.”
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner, who chaired today’s meeting, told the Council that “resolutions are adopted, but they are not implemented in full. Sanctions are adopted, but the implementation is delayed or they are weakened. Monitoring mechanisms are weakened, although the violations continue. Demands for a ceasefire or for withdrawal are formulated, but the measures backing them up and not sufficiently robust to ensure that they are implemented.”
In other words, Wagner said, “we do have the mechanisms on paper, but progressively they are losing the capacity to influence behaviour on the ground.”
Lasting peace, she said, “can never be achieved through the silencing of guns alone. It hinges on our collective capacity to prevent crises before they tip over into open conflict.”
The Congolese official said, “the measure of the Security Council's credibility does not boil down to the number of resolutions that the Council adopts. Its credibility is measured by its ability to enact the mechanisms it establishes and to ensure decisions it takes a respected.”
To conclude, she said, “we do have the instruments. Our collective responsibility is now to use them at an earlier stage, more systematically and more consistently, because the best resolution to a conflict is the one that would have prevented it from breaking out in the first place.”
