Last week, there were two open Council meetings on Syria and Yemen, followed by a closed-door briefing on the implementation of resolution 1701 that called for a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel.
New Delhi: It was a relatively low-key week in New York, which saw the United States again press on its message that it was back in business in the UN, even as it struggled to find common ground among Security Council members.
Last week, there were two open Council meetings on Syria and Yemen, followed by a closed-door briefing on the implementation of resolution 1701 that called for a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel.
A press statement on Yemen was also issued during this week, which condemned the violence by Houthi offensive against Marib city as potentially risking the collapse of renewed diplomacy to end the war.
During the Yemen briefing, the UN Secretary General’s special envoy, Martin Griffiths, expressed concern that more than one million internally displaced persons were at risk due to the fighting at Marib. He also worried about the missile and drone attacks aimed at Saudi Arabia and airstrikes within Sana’a city.
UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock pointed out that international efforts to stave off a massive famine in Yemen fell short. The donor conference on Yemen raised just $1.7 billion, less than half of what aid agencies need for this year.
India expressed concern at the Marib fighting and condemned the Houthis’ drone and missile attacks into Saudi Arabia.
Outside the UNSC’s formal structures, Russia sponsored an Arria-formula meeting on Crimea. It was the follow-up to the one organised by the Western bloc on Crimea a week earlier. India’s statement was a short one since there was “nothing substantive to add to the intervention made during the March 12 meeting”.
Noting that briefers at the meeting were “contrary” to the one in the previous Estonia-sponsored event, India’s deputy permanent representative R. Ravindra asserted that bilateral relations with countries in that region stood on their “own merit” and were “not affected by any individual issue or crisis or external factors”.
On the last day of the week, the United Kingdom organised an Arria-formula meeting about religious actors’ role in conflict resolution. The concept note, circulated earlier, posed three questions that asked whether religious actors should be made part of peace efforts, including UN processes.
Emphasising that “religion was a private matter for the individual”, India’s K. Nagaraj Naidu cautioned against involving religious institutions in UN’s actions to support peace efforts.
“While acknowledging that religious institutions in certain situations have played a positive role in conflict resolution and peacebuilding and that their moral authority can be force for good, the reverse can be equally true in instances where religious factions have festered discontent along communal lines that has resulted in conflict. Therefore, involvement of religious institutions in UN-led peace efforts can be a tendentious terrain, and we need to tread with caution, discernment and wisdom,” said the senior Indian diplomat.
Meanwhile, the Council President for March, United States, organised a virtual meeting of all the permanent representatives of the 15 members states with US President Joe Biden on Thursday.
The gist of President Biden’s message was to underline that Washington was again going to get its hands dirty in multilateral diplomacy to resolve conflicts. He listed Myanmar, Ethiopia, Libya, Syria and Yemen as areas that would need the Security Council to take “action”.
In his statement at the meeting, India’s permanent representative to the UN, T.S. Tirumurti outlined India’s policy in the United Nations and multilateral institutions.
Privileged to virtually call on @POTUS Biden with Ambs/PRs of #UNSC
— PR UN Tirumurti (@ambtstirumurti) March 19, 2021
Underlined India’s commitment to:
➡️ Reformed multilateralism
➡️ Democracy, Pluralism & Rule of Law
➡️ Maritime Security, @UNPeacekeeping & Counterterrorism
➡️ Development for All, #VaccineMaitri & #COP26 pic.twitter.com/sRYEsKHqvP
President Biden also announced the US would be joining the informal “Group of Friends on Climate and Security” in the UN. Germany and Nauru set up this 54-member group in 2018 to bring climate change “into even sharper focus on the UN political agenda”. India is not a member of this group.
Even when this topic is discussed in the Security Council, India has repeatedly expressed reservations about whether it should be put on the agenda of the UNSC at all. India argues that the linkage between security and climate change is not confirmed, and the topic is already being tackled through specialised UN bodies.
Incidentally, India has again brought this up during negotiations for a presidential statement on conflict and food insecurity, which can be issued only after concurrence from all 15 members.
According to Security Council Report, India – and China and Russia – have been concerned about a reference to climate change in the draft statement. As per the SCR report, India’s objections were about “contextualising the draft statement to make it clear that it focused on food insecurity caused by armed conflict”.
During the March 11 open debate on food security and conflict, India had asserted that Council should take up conflict-induced food insecurity “only in the context of specific countries where it may pose a threat to international peace and security”. The US has still not issued the presidential statement, which means that finding a consensus has been elusive till now.
Speaking of UN’s heavy agenda – as per rules of procedure, the Secretary-General has to frequently send a letter to the Security Council President with a summary statement of matters with which the Council “is seized and of the stage reached in their consideration”.
At the beginning of each year, the first summary statement identifies items that can be deleted if they are not discussed in a formal meeting for the previous three years. Unless a member states requests for specific items to be retained, they are deleted and communicated through another summary statement in March.
In the March 8 summary statement by the Secretary-General, there were 52 items on the Council’s agenda which were ‘active’ and had been discussed in the last three years. Three items have been deleted from the UNSC agenda after no objection from any country: the situation in Côte d’Ivoire, Briefing by the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, and the situation in North Korea.
That means that the Security Council remains “seized” of 14 items that have not been discussed formally for years. It includes three topics related to India, which have been kept on the agenda for one more year, at Pakistan’s request.
The first one is the “India-Pakistan Question”, which was last discussed a month after the 1965 war. China has attempted multiple times for the Council to discuss Kashmir in a formal set-up after last year’s change in the status of Jammu and Kashmir. However, those discussions were held under the “any other business” section of the agenda, which is not logged in official records.
The second one is even older – the Council had last held a briefing on the Hyderabad Question in May 1949. UNSC had included the matter in the agenda in September 1948 after Hyderabad had issued a cablegram to New York about a “grave dispute” with the Indian government and subsequent arrival of Indian troops.
Again, the last one is banally termed as the “the situation in the India/Pakistan subcontinent” – and is about the formation of Bangladesh after the 1971 war.
While India and Pakistan have continued to talk, on-and-off, about Kashmir over the years, it is not clear why Islamabad still wants to retain the other two topics. Pakistan, of course, recognised Bangladesh in 1974.
This week in the UNSC
The Council is scheduled to have video meetings on Afghanistan, Libya, Palestine, sanctions against North Korea and Sudan, and the UN peacekeeping mission at Golan Heights.
On Wednesday, India’s PR, T.S. Tirumurti will give a presentation as the chair of the 1970 Libya Sanctions committee, during the briefing on Libya.Closed-door meetings of the UNSC sanctions committee on Yemen and South Sudan are scheduled on Friday.
Outside the UNSC, Kenya has also organised an ‘Arria-formula’ meeting on Friday on the threat of improvised explosive devices to peacekeeping operations.
source ; the wire
Social media is bold.
Social media is young.
Social media raises questions.
Social media is not satisfied with an answer.
Social media looks at the big picture.
Social media is interested in every detail.
social media is curious.
Social media is free.
Social media is irreplaceable.
But never irrelevant.
Social media is you.
(With input from news agency language)
If you like this story, share it with a friend!
We are a non-profit organization. Help us financially to keep our journalism free from government and corporate pressure
0 Comments