S/PV.4288Resumption1 Security Council

Mr. Ouane (Mali) (spoke in French): Six months ago to the day, on the initiative of Mali and under the presidency of Mr. Alpha Oumar Konare, the Security Council met at the level of heads of State or Government, for the second time in its history, to consider how to ensure for the Security Council an effective role in the maintenance of international peace and security, in particular in Africa. Mali welcomes the spirit of cooperation that made possible this historic meeting. I am grateful to the delegation of Ukraine for having taken the initiative of organizing an open debate to take stock of the recommendations contained in resolution 1318 (2000), adopted on that occasion. Taking into account your appeal for brevity, Mr. President, I shall limit myself to making a few comments on two of the six questions raised in the outstanding working paper prepared by your delegation. My delegation believes that these questions deserve particular attention. First of all, there is a need to strengthen cooperation and communication between the United Nations and the regional and subregional organizations. My country has on numerous occasions taken a stand in favour of a genuine partnership between the Security Council and these organizations that would be mutually reinforcing. We are most gratified by the meetings of the Security Council with, on the one hand, the Mediation and Security Council of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), on 12 February 2001, and, on the other, the Political Committee on the Implementation of the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement, on 21 and 22 February 2001, to consider, respectively, the situation in the West African subregion and in the region of the Great Lakes. Those meetings made possible the adoption of resolutions 1341 (2001) and 1343 (2001), which, in the view of my delegation, represent a real test of the determination of the Security Council to address the aforementioned situations. Cooperation and coordination between the United Nations and the Organization of African Unity (OAU) should also be strengthened through a lasting political support and commitment. Here I should like to emphasize how important it is for the international community, and the Security Council in particular, to fully support regional and subregional efforts at conflict prevention, the maintenance of peace and security, and the settlement of disputes. It is essential, indeed, to act rapidly to bring about the implementation of the peace agreements concluded under the auspices of the OAU and of the subregional organizations, in particular by taking care to provide the necessary logistical and financial assistance. Moreover, resolute action on the part of the Security Council in this respect is in accordance with its primarily responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. It is indeed a source of satisfaction that the Security Council placed its action in this context in its presidential statement of 9 February 2001, which vigorously supports the peace agreement which the Government of the State of Eritrea and the Government of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia signed in Algiers on 12 December 2000. My delegation considers, moreover, that the Security Council must continue to attach equal importance to all situations which may have a bearing on international peace and security, and do so in all regions of the world. The Security Council should respond with the same determination and the same speed when it is dealing with a situation that poses a threat to international peace and security. I should like to recall that in this area the Charter does not provide for any type of categorization or for any order of priorities. It is the full responsibility of the Council to cope with these situations with the powers entrusted to it by the Charter and the instruments available to it. In conclusion, I should like to recall that peace and security in Africa can be achieved only if consistent and constant attention is paid to them. Today's debate marks an important stage in this process. As President Konare emphasized at the 7 September 2000 meeting, only a comprehensive and consistent approach can provide an extensive and lasting impact with respect to the effective role of the Security Council in the maintenance of international peace and security, in particular in Africa, by providing a better life for all in conditions of greater freedom.

The President: I thank the representative of Mali for his important statement and for his kind words addressed to me.

Mr. Mahbubani (Singapore): Please allow me to begin, Mr. President, by warmly welcoming you back to New York. I am pleased to see an old friend and colleague back in this important post, and we are very confident that you will lead us very well this month. I should also at the outset like to congratulate your predecessor, Ambassador said Ben Mustapha, for the tremendous work he did during the month of February. We are pleased that, even though the month of February was shorter than the month of January, there were more substantive outcomes in the month of February than in the month of January, and we congratulate you. Mr. President, we would also like to begin-I will limit my congratulatory remarks at this point, as this is the last congratulatory remark I will make - by thanking you for organizing this debate. We think the subject is an important one, because it advances a very key principle we believe in, which is the principle of accountability. In this regard, I must say that it is somewhat unusual for the Council to meet and review what heads of Government have decided six months ago, but your willingness to do this shows that we are prepared to discuss every subject if we have to. We are also pleased that the Secretary-General took time off of his busy schedule to open the debate. He made some very important remarks. From what I understood, I think he focused on one key word, which, if I heard correctly, was "action". In our remarks this afternoon - and I will try to be brief- we will focus on another key word, which is "results". That will be the theme of my remarks this afternoon. Mr. President, in your paper, which is very helpful, you posed six questions that we could touch upon in the course of this debate. But what we decided to do was in fact to go back to an earlier part of the paper, where, even before the six questions, you posed, in the fourth paragraph of the background paper, four questions which we will try to address. I will read out what the questions were. "Indeed, over the past years, the Security Council has been confronted with truly fundamental questions. Has it effectively discharged its primary responsibility in the area of the maintenance of international peace and security? Is the Council ready to produce and implement a well-targeted strategy to fulfil its primary task under the Charter of the United Nations? Is there a common will to face this challenge? And is there any shared vision of a real way to ensure an effective role for the Security Council in the maintenance of international peace and security?" (S/2001/185, p- 2) I will try to answer each question very briefly. The first question: has the Council effectively discharged its primary responsibility in the area of maintenance of international peace and security? Our answer is that like any other human institution, the Security Council has its share of successes and failures, and indeed the speakers that we have heard this morning provided us illustrations of both. We can indeed be grateful that the world at large is at peace. This is a significant human achievement. But we are still a long way from seeing the end of the scourge of war. Millions still live in conflict situations, and as the representatives of Algeria, Egypt and Namibia, among others, have pointed out, the response of this Council to many of these conflict situations has remained inconsistent. I will mention some examples of inconsistencies. For example, while the Council authorized the deployment of a mission 45,000-strong in Kosovo, for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is the size of Western Europe, the Security Council has envisaged a mission of only 3,000 peacekeepers. We are aware that the reasons are complex, and it is not possible to go into the complex reasons here. At the end of the day, the international community will judge us by our results on the ground. Indeed, in some cases the Council has proved itself incapable of action when action was sorely needed. Of course, the worst cases, which have been mentioned earlier, have been Rwanda and Srebrenica. But even while these examples are still fresh in our minds, some United Nations Members have found it difficult to understand the continued ambivalence of the Council towards live cases today, which include, for example, Guinea, which is the host of 500,000 refugees and whose borders with Sierra Leone and Liberia continue to be threatened by attacks. It is clear that perhaps more effective action is needed in such areas. For the same reason, we believe the Council needs to monitor the recent developments in Burundi very closely, for despite the fact that the peace process has been facilitated by no less a personality than Nelson Mandela, we continue to run into great difficulties. The biggest irony here is that after all the lofty pronouncements the Security Council has made, especially on the issue of protection of civilians in armed conflicts - and we have resolution 1318 (2000) to testify to that, which was adopted at the highest political level of the Council - unfortunately, from time to time, when civilians are in dangerous situations, the Council has not acted promptly or effectively. In this regard, I note the points made by the Ambassadors of Egypt and Namibia about the plight of civilians in the Middle East. The second question: is the Council ready to produce and implement a well-targeted strategy to fulfil its primary Charter task? Our answer flows from the first question, so you will not be surprised, Mr. President, ifI say that the Council's responses have often been ad hoc. To preserve its freedom of action, the Council has not worked out consistent criteria or principles for intervention, and this explains the inconsistent ad hoc responses. Our concern here is that the standing and the credibility of the Council will be diminished by signs of ad hoc responses, rather than consistent responses. Perhaps the Council has a strategy, but if it has, it is, unfortunately, not obvious to the larger public outside. The third question: is there a common will to face this challenge? We all know that for most of the cold war the Council was divided. Briefly, after the end of the cold war, especially during the Gulf War, the Council acted with a common will. This was followed in the early 1990s by problems and disasters, in Somalia, Bosnia and so forth, which unfortunately destroyed some of the common will. The challenge the Council faces today, which is a real challenge, is to rebuild that common will. The leadership for this, we believe, as a small State, must come from the major Powers. We must also demonstrate it, as I said earlier, on the ground. This common will has surfaced in places like East Timor, Kosovo and, possibly, Sierra Leone, but in other areas which were also mentioned this morning, the Council has not acted as effectively. The fourth and final question: is there any shared vision of a real way to ensure an effective role for the Security Council in the maintenance of international peace and security? Again, the answer, if we want to be completely honest with ourselves, is no. We do not have a shared vision yet. This is perhaps one of the tragedies about the Council today. The Charter gives it sweeping powers and sweeping responsibilities, but the custodians of these powers and responsibilities perhaps have not done a good job in meeting their Charter responsibilities. The time has therefore come to work out our common vision. We hope that this debate will do it. In conclusion, let me be honest. In the interest of brevity, I have kept my answers short, but the result of keeping my answers short is that I have been very harsh in the assessment; perhaps excessively harsh. But I have been so with a clear reason, and the reason is that the many small States like Singapore have an interest in a stronger, rather than a weaker, Council. We believe that the only way we can create a stronger Council rather than a weaker Council is to have such honest, open discussions about the questions that you have raised, Mr. President, in your paper. We also believe that for the Council to become strong and effective it needs to have a good strong relationship with the rest of the United Nations community. Indeed, one of the problems we have pointed to from time to time is that there is unfortunately a disconnect sometimes between the Security Council and the rest of the United Nations community. Our hope is that a debate like this, if conducted openly and honestly, will help reduce the disconnect, and if it helps reduce the disconnect, we will have a more effective Security Council. We therefore thank you, Mr. President, for organizing this debate.

The President: I thank the representative of Singapore for his kind words addressed to me.

Mr. Levitte (France) (spoke in French): Thank you, Mr. President, for having organized this debate, which, as the Ambassador of Singapore has said, allows us to check where we stand in the implementation of one of our resolutions, which actually is our roadmap, as it was adopted by the heads of State themselves. It was good to hear this morning the views of the Ambassadors of non-members States of the Council regarding our work. Sweden spoke on behalf of the European Union and made a wide-ranging statement. As you had asked, Sir, I would like to respond to this morning's statements, as well as to those made this afternoon, in the spirit of an interactive debate, which is often lacking in our work. I shall refer to five comments that were made in the context of this debate. The first comment relates to the effectiveness of Security Council decisions. This morning Mr. Kofi Annan emphasized that adopting resolutions is fine, but it is even better to implement them in the field. This morning several countries addressed this point insistently: Argentina, Algeria, Pakistan and Croatia. Political will to implement resolutions is vital. This is a real message being sent to the 15 members of the Council. But by definition it is also being sent to the entire international community, since the implementation of resolutions often goes beyond the 15 members of the Security Council. I am thinking particularly about the parties to a conflict themselves. They are the ones who are first called on to implement Security Council resolutions. There is a message here: from near or far, we are all involved in the implementation of resolutions we adopt in this Chamber, beginning with the parties to a conflict, to which most of the resolutions are addressed. My second comment relates to the role of regional organizations. This is a difficult issue, but I think the Security Council has made progress in this regard. Several delegations-Canada, Sweden on behalf of the European Union, and Argentina- addressed that issue at great length this morning. They emphasized the importance they attach to this cooperation between the Council and regional organizations. I think I can safely say that, in this Chamber, Council members feel exactly the same desire to work with the regional organizations on an ever-increasing basis. The truth is, that is what we are doing. Yesterday - and I think this was a first since the United Nations was established-we heard the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), because that organization is responsible for the Kosovo Force. Earlier, in January, we heard the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Romania on behalf of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. As to Africa, we have hosted the ministers of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) with increasing frequency, last month under the presidency of Tunisia and in June under the French presidency. In February and June, we hosted ministers from Central Africa, members of the Political Committee of the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement, who came to discuss the crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I therefore believe that cooperation exists. The problem is how to implement it in a satisfactory manner. I think that there are two difficulties in this respect. First, regional organizations themselves -or, even more frequently, subregional organizations, which are just beginning to emerge and do not always have the necessary cohesion, much less the means to implement their decisions -turn to the Security Council for that purpose. However, we have problems when the Security Council is not involved early on in the preparation of such decisions, because we are sometimes assigned missions in which the Council does not wish to become involved. For instance, the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement calls upon us to disarm the negative forces - the Interahamwe and the former Rwandan Armed Forces. I think there is a unanimous belief among its members that the Council cannot perform that function. Dialogue is good, but it must occur at a very early phase when a regional or subregional organization may later wish the Council to assume a mandate or undertake a mission. The other difficulty is finding the proper balance between the respect that the Council owes to subregional and regional organizations that wish to do their work for peace and the primary responsibility of the Security Council. It seems to me that the resolution that we adopted this morning on the crisis in West Africa and the role of Liberia demonstrates that, after many days of sometimes painful but ultimately productive dialogue, we achieved consensus, not only among the 15 members of the Council, but also between the Council and ECOWAS. This morning's resolution is a good example of persistent and ultimately constructive dialogue between the Security Council and a subregional organization. My third comment relates to criticism addressed to the Security Council by several speakers this morning regarding its pusillanimity. We are not bold or courageous enough; we could do more. The Ambassador of Singapore said this with his customary eloquence. We can all think of many instances when we should have done more or better. This may be true, but we must ask ourselves what we want to do. I would respond to the Ambassador of Singapore's reference to figures. Currently, there are 45,000 personnel from the Atlantic Alliance in Kosovo, which contains some 5 per cent of the territory and no more than 10 per cent of the population of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His implicit question was whether the Security Council is ready to send 500,000 people to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. To put the question in these terms shows that, if we are being logical, we cannot send the same mission to the Congo that we have assigned to NATO leadership in Kosovo. There, we are imposing peace with the necessary means to do so. As to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it was decided after a lengthy debate that we would abide by the will of the parties themselves and observe their disengagement and withdrawal. Each crisis must be judged in the light of what it represents and of the ways and means that the Council can realistically hope to put together. Here, we need to go above and beyond the Council and turn to the Members of the Organization. How many people can we assemble to go to the Congo or to Sierra Leone? This leads me to my fourth comment on peacekeeping operations themselves. We have the guidelines from our heads of State, as well as the Brahimi report, which we would like to implement in its entirety. In this respect, I wish to return in greater detail to the subject of the Congo and the United Nations Organization Mission there, because several representatives who spoke this morning asked whether we were right or not. The Ambassador of Singapore rephrased the question. Since we discussed this just before the adoption of resolution 1341 (2001), I think we might enlighten our colleagues outside the Council. There was a genuine discussion as we wondered whether or not to go in. We said yes, we can go; in any case, we must go. Once again, the mandate we have given the Mission is not to impose peace - we are not able to do that-but to monitor the implementation of the Agreement that the parties themselves have signed and claim to wish to implement. If our task is indeed to monitor the implementation of a disengagement agreement, there are sufficient means to do so. In that first phase, we were to assist a dynamic for peace, to the existence of which the ministers who came to New York attested. That, however, is only the initial phase, which must be followed by others, including the genuine withdrawal to the borders of all foreign forces. In involving ourselves in that second phase, we will need to review the mandate and the necessary means to fulfil it. That is the task that awaits us when we visit the region in mid-May. The true message to peacekeeping operations is the partnership that we commit ourselves to entering into with the parties to a conflict themselves. Here, we must make the international community as a whole understand that this is a sealed agreement and that when it is violated, as it was in Sierra Leone, the Security Council has to act and do its utmost. That is what we did this morning. My fifth and last comment refers to sanctions, the necessary complement. Between words and weapons, we have sanctions. Sanctions were criticized by some this morning and France itself has some reservations about them. Above and beyond our questions, we must acknowledge the fact that our Council has made great progress in recent months in preparing a truly new, sharper and better targeted doctrine that can gradually be put into effect. In all the resolutions on Ethiopia/Eritrea, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and, this morning, on Liberia, we have progressively improved the targeting of the sanctions, not against the population but against the principal leaders. Secondly, we have increasingly established clear objectives and clear, verifiable criteria for the lifting of sanctions. Thirdly, we take care to make prior assessments of the humanitarian impact of sanctions on a population. This is a real step forward. Fourthly, I think I can say that four times out of four in recent months we have adopted time-bound sanctions. That is not a sign of weakness, but of the Council's willingness to re-evaluate the situation and to consider whether and how we should continue at the end of the one-year period. I believe this is progress. Finally, our sanctions serve more as incentives than as punishment. The aim is to induce those targeted to redress their behaviour and to return to stricter respect for international law. For all these reasons, France considers that we need a modest permanent monitoring mechanism, and we appeal for the establishment of such a mechanism. I would like to say in conclusion that this debate is useful because it allows us to reflect interactively on what we are doing and helps us understand that there is still a long road to travel. It is for the Ambassador of Singapore to say this, with his sharp-edged lucidity, but France would also like to take the liberty of saying that we have already travelled some of that road.

The President: I thank the representative of France for his kind words addressed to me.

Miss Durrant (Jamaica): First let me thank you, Mr. President, and the delegation of Ukraine for presenting us with a working document that challenges us to evaluate our performance in meeting the objectives which our heads of State and Government set for us at the Security Council summit on 7 September 2000. This review by the Council, and having non-members of the Council express their views in this open debate, cannot but help the Council in fulfilling its mandate and broaden the support of the wider membership for its actions. Mr. President, you posed a number of questions related to the declaration adopted in resolution 1318 (2000), the answers to which can serve as a measure of our commitment to implement the decisions taken. While it is not possible to give detailed answers to each of the questions in the time allowed, my delegation wishes to take this opportunity to highlight briefly those areas in which the Council's record since the summit demonstrates the will or lack thereof to be responsive to resolution 1318 (2000). The time that has elapsed since the summit has been an extremely busy period for the Security Council. We have continued to be challenged by a number of conflicts and other issues which threaten international peace and security, as well as the social, political and economic well-being of the global community. The humanitarian situation in many countries has been exacerbated by armed conflicts and natural disasters. We have seen an increase in the number of refugees and internally displaced persons, which strains the ability of the international community to relieve the suffering of a vast majority of those affected. Women and children have borne the brunt of these humanitarian disasters, and the needs have far exceeded available resources. The international community has been seeking ways to meet the challenge of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which the Security Council has determined to be a serious threat to international peace and security. The Security Council's declaration affirmed its determination to give equal priority to the maintenance of peace and security in every region of the world and made a commitment to "ensuring an effective role for the Security Council in the maintenance of international peace and security, particularly in Africa". (resolution 1318 (2000)) In the course of the Security Council's summit debate, Jamaica's Prime Minister, The Right Honourable P. J. Patterson, advanced Jamaica's position on the key issues of Security Council reform; the role of the United Nations in protecting the most vulnerable - refugees and internally displaced persons; the need to generate the requisite international political will to act against gross violations of human rights and international humanitarian laws; the requirement that the Security Council take action to make its actions more effective, particularly in the design and implementation of sanctions; the role of the United Nations in the illicit traffic in small arms; conflict prevention as paramount in the maintenance of international peace and security; and the indispensable role of regional and subregional organizations in peace- building efforts. Important steps have been taken by the Council to address many of these issues, but these must be followed by further concrete action. Some of the actions taken clearly demonstrate the Council's recognition of some of its weaknesses and give evidence of its efforts aimed at achieving better results in the maintenance of international peace and security. First, the Council undertook a comprehensive review of the recommendations of the Brahimi report on United Nations peace operations, which resulted in the adoption of resolution 1327 (2000) of 13 November 2000, setting out a doctrine for United Nations peacekeeping operations. The Council was unanimous in recognizing the need to improve the way peacekeeping operations are designed and implemented and the need to engage all the relevant actors in a meaningful way for successful peacekeeping. Some of these recommendations have been implemented, but while resolution 1327 (2000) established a doctrine on peacekeeping operations, the Council must now establish the modalities and mechanisms to implement institutional changes. Second, the Council followed up with an examination of the need to explore exit strategies when considering the establishment of peacekeeping operations. Jamaica supported the conclusions that the Council must seek to ensure that peace agreements which require United Nations involvement in peacekeeping provide for a clear political objective; that they meet minimum conditions for United Nations peacekeeping operations; and that such agreements incorporate practical, designated tasks and time-lines for implementation, and criteria for final disengagement. The Council pledged to scrupulously seek to avoid a repeat of past mistakes by defining its exit strategies in the future. Only time will tell whether or not we can fulfil this undertaking. Third, in January of this year the Council took a pragmatic approach to engaging troop-contributing countries in an examination of the relationship between them, the Secretariat and the Council itself. Troop- contributing countries and other members of the United Nations community were given an opportunity to share their views with the Council on ways to improve that relationship and in so doing improve the possibility of success in peacekeeping operations. This was in keeping with the doctrine established in resolution 1327 (2000). The troop-contributing countries provided the Council with a number of important recommendations aimed at enhancing peacekeeping operations and involving the troop-contributing countries in a collaborative effort. As a result of these discussions, and of the determination to find ways to enhance its role in the maintenance of international peace and security, on 31 January this year the Council established a Working Group on peacekeeping operations, which is now examining as a matter of priority the recommendations offered by troop- contributing countries. Fourth, in an open debate that included participation by the wider United Nations membership, the Council examined the importance of pre- and post- conflict peace-building measures in preventing conflicts from occurring in the first place and from recurring once a peaceful settlement has been achieved. In this context, peace-building was recognized as an important tool in the promotion of durable peace and sustainable development. While this is true for every region of the world, and has been an integral element of the peace processes in the Balkans and in East Timor, the Council recognized that this approach must be inherent in all peace operations. The Security Council invited participation by other organs of the United Nations, the international financial community, regional and subregional organizations and other key participants in peace-building in examining specific cases such as Guinea-Bissau and the Central African Republic. The Council recognized peace-building as an important and indispensable conflict-prevention tool. It also recognized that the involvement of regional organizations is key to finding and bringing lasting solutions to these conflict situations. Fifth, the Council has been fully engrossed in seeking solutions to specific conflicts, particularly in Africa, with the conflicts in Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo being given high priority on its agenda. Others have referred to the meetings held with representatives of the Economic Community of West African States and the Political Committee of the Lusaka peace process, and to the pledge of cooperation and collaboration made by the Council in seeking to bring lasting peace to those regions. Working with those subregional groups, the Council has sought to advance the peace process in these areas, and there are now visible signs of progress. It is imperative that the Council remain fully engaged in these issues. Other conflicts, such as the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, are reaching desired resolutions. The one area in which it has been difficult to act is that of the protection of civilians affected by conflict. One case in point is the current situation in the Guinea-Sierra Leone-Liberia region of West Africa, where the lives of thousands of civilians are at risk. Tomorrow, the Council will discuss with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees just what the international community can do to help those who look to us for assistance. I wish to thank those Members States in Africa and elsewhere that have, at great economic and social cost, provided safe haven to large numbers of refugees. Unfortunately, we have to urge them to continue to do so. Sixth, the debate on the subject of women and peace and security sharpened our focus on the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflict and in peace-building. We recognized the importance of women's equal participation and of their full involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security. The Council urged the Secretariat to incorporate a gender perspective in peacekeeping operations and to expand the role and contribution of women in United Nations field-based operations, especially among military observers, civilian police and human rights and humanitarian personnel. As we look towards tomorrow's observance of International Women's Day, we look for further action by the Security Council on these issues. Seventh, the Security Council has been undertaking a critical evaluation of the general issues related to sanctions, and a number of areas in which consensus has already been achieved have been reflected in the recently adopted sanctions regimes. This is one area in which the full support of the entire membership is crucial for effective implementation. Later this year, the Security Council and the General Assembly will have an opportunity to receive and to act upon the Secretary-General's report on conflict prevention, which the Council requested in July 2000. The Secretary-General's report will afford us the opportunity to give due consideration to the role of conflict prevention in the maintenance of international peace and security, and will also allow us the opportunity to examine the negative effects of conflicts on the economic, social and political developments in Africa and elsewhere. It will allow us the opportunity to institutionalize conflict-prevention measures, which will enhance sustainable economic growth and sustainable development. My delegation believes that this opportunity should not be lost on the members of the United Nations. We look forward to support for a proactive approach to conflict prevention as an important tool in the maintenance of international peace and security. In conclusion, Mr. President, I wish to thank you again for organizing this debate. Our heads of State and Government have entrusted the Council with a major responsibility. It is up to us to deliver the results.

Mr. Wang Yingfan (China) (spoke in Chinese): The Security Council summit held last September decided to strengthen the effective role of the Council in the maintenance of international peace and security, particularly in Africa. It is necessary and opportune that we hold a discussion today on ways to implement the spirit of the summit. I wish to thank you, Mr. President, for your initiative and efforts in holding this open debate. In their statements this morning, many of our colleagues representing States not members of the Council offered comments, proposals and even criticisms on the work of the Security Council. In strengthening its work, it is very important for the Council to take into consideration the views of the Member States of the United Nations. Over the last six months, the Security Council has made extra efforts and has made some headway in monitoring and containing international conflicts and disputes. The Council has continued to pay special attention to Africa. It responded in a timely manner to the ceasefire Agreement reached between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and a peacekeeping mission was promptly deployed in that region. It has continued to focus on the situation in Sierra Leone. By taking initiatives such as dispatching a mission to Sierra Leone and to relevant West African countries and by strengthening coordination with regional organizations concerned in this regard, the Council has made extra efforts to address this issue. Furthermore, in facing the new situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it seized the opportunity and adopted a resolution on the deployment of the next phase of the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As for strengthening peacekeeping capacity, the Security Council started the process last September by taking the lead in reviewing the Brahimi report. It established a Working Group of the Whole to continue its deliberations on relevant issues. The sound recommendations contained in the Brahimi report are being implemented step by step. For example, communication and coordination with relevant regional organizations and troop-contributing countries have been further strengthened, which is a welcome development supported generally by troop-contributing countries. The end of last year also witnessed the resolution of the issue of peacekeeping assessments, which will bolster the peacekeeping operations of the United Nations. To that end, Member States have provided input, and the input provided by some Council members in this regard should be put on record. The Council has also made commendable efforts in controlling hot-spot issues, stopping conflicts and carrying out preventive diplomacy. In order to curb the violent conflict between Palestine and Israel, members of the Council and Member States have been working hard to find a solution acceptable to all sides. However, the Council's endeavours in addressing a number of issues that threaten world and regional peace and security - including the Palestinian-Israeli conflict 4 have so far failed to yield overall satisfactory or effective results. On certain issues, the Council has not been able to play a fully effective role. Some other issues have eluded resolution for a long time, thus constituting a challenge to the authority of the Security Council. The reasons for all of this, which may involve many aspects, have already been mentioned by some previous speakers and deserve the attention of the Security Council. As one of the permanent members of the Security Council, China has always attached great importance to the role of the Council in maintaining international peace and security. The Chinese Government maintains a serious and responsible attitude towards implementing the spirit of the Security Council summit and places a special emphasis on action. For instance, China has continuously put African issues high on its agenda of priorities and has been committed to making its own contributions, both within and outside the Council, to peace and development in Africa. As to questions on which there are still differences and to which there is no easy solution, we have always maintained that solutions acceptable to all sides should be sought earnestly by exploring common ground on the basis of the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter and in the service of the higher interests of international and regional peace and security. In this spirit, for instance, China has actively participated in discussions on the question of peacekeeping operations, as well as the question of the scale of assessment for peacekeeping operations, and has made constructive efforts and contributions in those regards. The Chinese Government is working to create conditions for its strengthened participation in United Nations peacekeeping operations. Besides the personnel that China has already contributed or is going to contribute to relevant peacekeeping operations, the Chinese Government is right now working with the Secretariat on details of China contributing logistic contingents to peacekeeping operations. In a word, much remains to be done in improving and strengthening the work of the Security Council, and we are ready to make unremitting efforts, together with other Council members and all United Nations Member States, to this end. Before concluding, I also wish to briefly touch upon the question of improving the working methods of the Security Council. The workload of the Council has been increasing at such a rate that, as time goes by, it will undermine the Council's efficiency, functions and ability to deal with important peace and security issues in a timely and effective manner. Therefore, the Chinese delegation has continuously supported the reform of the Security Council's working methods. Improving working efficiency and increasing transparency constitute two important components of the reform. A balance should be struck between the two for such reform. The Security Council should focus on the primary issues of maintaining international peace and security. It is impractical to pack the Council's agenda with all other important issues listed on the agenda of the United Nations.

Sir Jeremy Greenstock (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland): The debate that the President of the Council has wisely instituted on this subject is an excellent opportunity, both to review where our focus should lie over the next six months in following up the declaration of our heads of Government and State last September and to listen to the views of non-members of the Council on where they want concentrated action. Under the pressure of the demands put upon it, the Security Council is gradually changing the way it acts. I should like that change to accelerate. At the end of my intervention 1 shall make some comments in that area to follow up on what the Ambassadors of Singapore and France have said. Much of the principle of the follow-up and quite a lot of the substance have been covered by a good European Union statement this morning. I will not go over the same ground again. We are still dealing with our business in fairly general terms, and before long we are going to have to get down to some particulars. But, I am not sure that we are getting there today. We may have to continue this debate. I would like to pick up not your four questions, Mr. President, but your six questions in the second part of your paper, before I come to some final comments. First, how effective are we being in giving special attention to Africa? There is no doubt of the answer to that: less effective than Africa deserves. But the Security Council's focus on African conflicts is being maintained, and the special characteristics of African conflicts, which you refer to, are being addressed more directly, not least in the cases of Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola. But, more important than that in terms of recent developments, Africans themselves are beginning to take practical action to address the special circumstances that have dragged Africa down and left the continent lagging in development terms. A sense of renewal and partnership is being created, both amongst Africans and between Africa and the rest of the world. Likewise, as Ambassador Levitte said earlier, there has to be a partnership between the Security Council and the parties to a peace agreement-so there has to be a partnership between the outside world, in particular the developed world, and the continent of Africa. At last, in the view of the United Kingdom, Africans and their non-African partners are beginning to look forward to solutions to African problems, not always backwards to blame and resentment. As an organization, the United Nations needs to build on this fast, not least in our approach to financing for development and other Economic and Social Council issues, as well as to peacekeeping. Secondly, does the Security Council give equal priority to all conflicts or crisis situations? Of course not. The Security Council has no magic wand to wave away all conflicts equally. We have to concentrate on those that are most susceptible to treatment-and even then we have immense difficulties. But slowly we are becoming more professional and workmanlike in our approach to conflict management. If that produces a higher rate of success, then other regions or States in conflict will be more likely to turn to the United Nations for help, and the whole international system of conflict prevention and peace-building will gain confidence and coherence. For now, we have to be selective. Some speakers this morning and Ambassador Mahbubani this afternoon raised the question of inconsistency. We cannot get away from the problems that are called inconsistency just by resolving to be consistent. It goes deeper than that. I want to mention to my Council partners and to the wider audience an important point that my former Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, took up in a recent article about policy decisions. He says that the fact that the international community cannot intervene everywhere to protect human rights or to lead to peace and security need not be an argument against helping where we can. But, it is an argument against too much philosophizing on the subject. It is also a reason for not trying to confuse decisions of policy with obligations under international law. Most of the time the Security Council is dealing with decisions of policy, and not responding to an obligation under international law. Having a primary responsibility for peace and security is not an obligation under international law; it is description of a function. Douglas Hurd says that the moment those who take such decisions try to buttress them by arguing that they are a requirement of international law, they are immediately exposed as hypocrites for not obeying that same requirement in other tragedies across the world, which they have no intention of putting right. We should be modest in doing good, not only because of the prudent limits to our own strength but because, however much we do, there will be much evil in the world about which we do nothing. Thirdly, peacekeeping operations are now under vigorous review, and we have a lot of work on our hands, within the United Nations system generally, to implement the Brahimi report (S/2000/809) comprehensively. The Security Council has established a working group to follow up its own responsibilities in this respect. We must all be ready to act on the Department of Peacekeeping Operations review when it reports in May. And the Secretariat must take forward the other work foreseen in the implementation plan. This is the most important thematic area for the Council to get right in 2001. Fourthly, within the Brahimi framework, the United Nations approach to conflict prevention needs particular attention, because we all have so far failed to find a really effective way of preventing conflict, even when we know it is approaching. The Secretary- General's report, due in May, is the next important milestone. We have already discussed peace-building in the Council and have recognized that coordination between the Security Council and other parts of the United Nations system is essential. But have we turned that into practical action? No, we have not. It is time to bring the Security Council closer together with other parts of the system. As a start, the United Kingdom will institute, during its April presidency, a meeting between Security Council members and the Bureau of the Economic and Social Council, and with other major United Nations players on conflict management, to discuss coordination and coherent action on peace-building and conflict management. I have the support of the President of the Economic and Social Council for that in principle. I shall discuss the matter with the President of the General Assembly, and I ask for the Council's support. Fifthly, the idea of producing comprehensive international strategies to address root causes of conflicts is ambitious, because the root causes themselves are disparate and complex. They can include the collapse of state government, rebellion, ethnic or cultural incompatibility, brutal and greedy government, or sheer poverty and the collapse of organized economic life. The Security Council cannot dictate a comprehensive international strategy to cover all these evils. But it can work with other parts of the international system and with the affected regions to develop a broad partnership in addressing the root causes of conflict. In real life, political, economic and social phenomena are seamlessly intertwined. So must the United Nations response be. As I have said, signs of this broad partnership are just emerging in Africa, and it is time for the Security Council and the African organizations -regional and subregional - to start working together more constructively. As you suggest in your sixth question, Mr. President, we have made too little concrete progress in this respect. Why, for instance, have the Security Council and the Organization of African Unity failed to establish a continuous and productive working relationship? What is needed is not so much institutional reinforcement, which you mentioned, but a change of approach on both sides of the equation, to reflect the recognition that both United Nations organs and regional organizations have been too self-contained and politically constrained to devote themselves to really effective collective action. We must break out of our unproductive mould on all sides, and a good sign of that, perhaps, was our cooperation with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on the Liberian resolution we adopted this morning. A concluding note: the Security Council has to raise itself up a level from the traditional way of doing things. If, in doing that, we generate a bit of healthy competition with the General Assembly, 1 see no particular harm done, particularly if we all respond not with criticism of each other but with action and results. For our part in the Council, we have to understand our real objectives and be realistic about them; use our time more carefully and purposefully; admit our failures or our inability to act, and understand why; be more transparent, especially with the non-members of the Security Council; and, perhaps most of all, search more willingly for the collective interest, an approach which need not be at the expense of our national interests, if only we are prepared to calculate the long-term benefits. This morning the Secretary-General asked whether our capitals were now engaged in following up the Millennium Summit commitments at the political level. I am under instructions from my Prime Minister to act and not just speak, in this sense, because he wants the declaration of 7 September 2000 to leave a mark. It is time to test ourselves by this higher standard, and I hope that this will be the result of this useful debate.

Mr. Lavrov (Russian Federation) (spoke in Russian): We too welcome the holding of this discussion, which makes it possible to take stock of the first results of the implementation of the decisions of the summit of the Security Council held six months ago. The results of that meeting had a substantive influence on the further work of the United Nations. On the whole, the documents adopted at the summit, as well as the documents adopted at the Millennium Summit, are important in and of themselves, because they clearly set out priorities for United Nations activities and clearly reaffirm that these activities must be carried out on the solid basis of the Charter of the United Nations. And - no matter how funny this may sound-that reaffirmation was not easy to achieve, but common sense won the day and the principles of the Charter were unanimously reaffirmed. A great deal is being said to the effect that the summit of the Security Council provided an impetus for efforts to improve United Nations peacekeeping activities, and that is indeed the case. The Council did its job. The General Assembly did its share of the work, and the Security Council adopted resolution 1327 (2000), in accordance with the mandate given us by the heads of State on 7 September. That resolution contains a number of innovative decisions. We believe that this was a step forward and that it is necessary at this stage to implement those innovations. Only when some progress has been achieved in the actual implementation of those agreements will it be possible to ask if further changes are necessary. A great deal is also being said on the subject of the reform of United Nations peacekeeping. The need to strengthen the military component in planning operations and in their implementation has been discussed at length. In that connection, I should like to recall that in resolution 1327 (2000), the Security Council decided to consider the question of how best to make use of the Military Staff Committee. I think that here there is a need - and this was spoken to earlier by Ambassador Greenstock-not to leave all of this on paper or simply within the sphere of conversation, but to see what, in fact, can really be done. Incidentally, that would be in keeping with the wishes that have been expressed here by many Members of the United Nations -that the permanent members of the Security Council participate more actively in United Nations peacekeeping operations. Naturally, in current conditions, the activities of the Military Staff Committee in rendering assistance to the Security Council in the planning and carrying out of operations must be implemented in close interaction with the troop-contributing countries. That, unquestionably, is in our view a fully realistic possibility, and we once again propose that we continue to consider how to make our decisions truly functional. An important subject which was raised at the Millennium Summit, at the Security Council summit and in our resolution 1327 (2000) was the subject of cooperation between the United Nations and the regional organizations. A great many of the participants in today's discussions have spoken to this, and, in my View, that is one of the most promising areas for the development of peacekeeping as a whole on the basis of the Charter of the United Nations. I should like to recall, incidentally, that both the Millennium Summit and the Security Council summit meeting emphasized that cooperation between the United Nations and regional organizations must be developed on the basis of Chapter VIII of the Charter of the United Nations. I think that everyone understands what that means: force can only be used on the basis of the Charter, either in terms of the right to self defence or with the sanction of the Security Council. Mention was made of double standards and reference was made to the examples of Kosovo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Double standards, of course, exist in the work of the Security Council, but the specific example cited by my colleague from Singapore is, it seems to me, not quite correct. Regarding the Kosovo Force (KFOR), that is not a United Nations operation. It is an operation of a coalition of countries that represents an ad hoc regional arrangement. In answer to the appeal of those countries and with the agreement of the parties to the conflict, the Security Council gave a mandate for the implementation of that operation. The operation is being carried out through the means supplied by its participants, including financing. As for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, we are talking about the expansion of a United Nations peacekeeping operation. That is a somewhat different situation. I am not now going to go into the reasons why the expansion of this operation is proceeding rather slowly. I would only like to express the hope that in the light of the most recent events, possibly this process can be speeded up. But if we take the United Nations peacekeeping operations as a whole, then I think that the majority of them are now being carried out in Africa. That in itself reflects the implementation and practice of those decisions that were taken by the heads of State at the Security Council summit. Not only the African operations are important. One of the biggest operations is in East Timor, Although I recognize the existence of double standards, in the specific example that was being spoken of here I think the situation is somewhat different. Of course, double standards in fact continue to exist, and they persist primarily in the positions of certain members of the Council when we are not able to reach agreement because certain national approaches do not coincide with the positions of the Security Council. The most obvious example is Iraq. We have a policy drawn up by the Security Council and expressed in our resolutions, and, yes, it is now encountering difficulties. Moreover, it is in fact at a dead-end, but that dead end was created as a result of unilateral actions of force that were undertaken against Iraq and that have no legal grounds. These are individual separate subjects, and I am sure that in the very near future the Security Council will have to take up that problem of Iraq too, in a comprehensive and transparent way, so that we can all - not just the members of the Security Council, but the other United Nations Member States - express our views on how we can manage to overcome this most serious problem, because it is not going anywhere. Today mention was also made of the fact that in order to overcome double standards, the Security Council must draw up criteria that will enable it to take decisions as to when there is a need to intervene in one crisis or another. Here I am a sceptic, and I agree with Ambassador Greenstock that to provide criteria that would make it possible in some magical way to resolve any problem whatever simply automatically is impossible. This also applies to the well known proposals to the effect that a single set of criteria for humanitarian intervention should also be drawn up. Regarding humanitarian intervention, there is no need to invent anything. There is the United Nations Charter, and everything that is not based on the United Nations Charter is a violation of international law. I wish to focus on the question of interaction of the Security Council with other organizations of the United Nations system. That subject was also brought up here today. I fully share what was said to that effect by the Permanent Representative of China. I do not think the Security Council is acting correctly when it begins increasingly to take under discussion and include on its agenda issues that are being considered by the General Assembly or the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and other bodies and organizations of the United Nations and its system. Of course, interaction is necessary, but that interaction must be implemented through working methods and pragmatically, and not through the organization of public debates in this Chamber on subjects directly taken from the agenda of the General Assembly, ECOSOC and other bodies. I understand that it is easier to reach an agreement among 15 members than among 189 members. But such are the drawbacks of democracy, and all the more so since everything is written in the Charter and the rules of procedure as to who does what. In conclusion, I wish to note that the Security Council summit also devoted attention to our working methods and many of those decisions that were adopted by the heads of State are being implemented. We are substantively improving the relations between the Security Council and the troop-contributing countries. We are seeking practical ways to approach peace- building, that would take into account the mutual competencies of the Security Council, ECOSOC, the General Assembly, the specialized agencies and the United Nations programmes and funds and would not allow for duplication or interference in each another's competencies. In these areas, as in other areas set out by the heads of State, there is a need to continue work. In conclusion, I would like to thank you, Mr. President, once again, and I would like to thank the delegation of Ukraine for having undertaken the initiative to hold today's follow-up review meeting. I think that these exchanges of views are useful and, in our view, they reaffirm the most important thing, which is that the Security Council must focus its efforts on its central task: resolving practical problems of the maintenance of international peace and security.

Mr. Valdivieso (Colombia) (spoke in Spanish): We wish to highlight the initiative you have taken, Mr. President, to convene an open debate to follow-up on resolution 1318, adopted on 7 September 2000, by the heads of State and Government of the Security Council member States. We also wish to emphasize the initiative you have taken to enable the non-members of the Security Council to speak this morning so that Council members could take their proposals into account in our statements, which is most important for our future work agenda. We noted this morning the overall recognition of the progress made by the Council in recent months in areas such as the consultations on peacekeeping operations, attention focused on the causes of conflicts in Africa and the monitoring of sanctions regimes. We were also able to see that we are being urged- and here my delegation fully agrees- to adopt stronger measures in the Security Council vis-d- vis the uncontrolled international trade of small weapons, to observe the appropriate competencies with regard to other United Nations bodies in connection with peace-building following conflicts and, finally, to ensure that decisions adopted by the Council are better known and have the desired effect on areas of the world to which they are directed. It is only natural that the permanent members of the Security Council should bear a greater responsibility for improving the effectiveness of this organ, since many of these measures require a long time to be consolidated. Of course, non-permanent members must also assume our share of responsibility in this task and we shall do so with greater aptitude to the extent that the Council is sufficiently representative of the Members of the Organization, with broad participation and, above all, greater transparency in its decision-making. One area that was scarcely mentioned in September's declaration by the heads of State and Government, but which is nonetheless the subject of great attention and discussion in the Council, is that of the imposition of sanctions. Under the Charter, sanctions should be used as a means to help maintain international peace and security and as an alternative to the use of force. They should not be thought of, however, as a punitive tool to extract political concessions. We would prefer them to be used to encourage greater cooperation, not confrontation, on the part of state or non-state actors that threaten international peace and security. Thus, the debates that have been held within and outside the Council on the humanitarian consequences of sanctions reflect the deep concern prevailing in the international community, and the Council must respond appropriately to that reality. Two other aspects that we wish to emphasize relate to the Security Council's competence with respect to international peace and security and its conduct in conflicts in Africa. Colombia strongly believes in the power conferred on the Security Council as principal guarantor of international peace and security. However, without the establishment of any clear criteria for doing so, the Council has continued to expand the concept of threats to international peace and security to include an interminable series of topics on which it claims competence. In so doing, it is depriving interested States that are not members of the Council from participating in negotiations; it is denying the General Assembly and other organs and agencies of the United Nations system the ability to consider items that naturally fall within their purview; and it is compromising its own ability to obtain tangible results in areas where it has no competitive advantage. The Security Council's attention to Africa is understandable and Colombia considers the United Nations presence in that part of the world to be essential. Africa deserves this dedication in our work. Nevertheless, I wish to emphasize two elements. First, we feel that the Council should work more closely with regional and subregional organizations on the continent that are entrusted with the prevention and settlement of conflicts. We recall that the September summit was presided over by the head of State of Mali and that its delegation in the Council made important contributions from the standpoint of the Economic Community of West African States and its interests. Secondly, the complexity of conflicts in Africa requires a strategy of integrating political, economic, social and humanitarian aspects, which require responses not only from the Council, but also from the United Nations as a whole. As to the Council, the attention it has paid to conflict-prevention strategies is justified, as are post-conflict peace-building processes. We believe, however, that much remains to be done in that field. In conclusion, it is clear that United Nations Members as a whole are attentively following proceedings in the Security Council and expect satisfactory results from its missions. We feel that a debate such as this has the merit of generating a greater degree of commitment and solidarity among all Members of the Organization, not just among Council members, with respect to activities in the maintenance of international peace and security.

Mr. Cunningham (United States of America): I want to thank you, Sir, and your delegation for organizing this discussion, which has proved to be quite interesting and informative, I hope, to members of the Council and to our guests here today. It has certainly given us a great opportunity to hear the views of non-members of the Council on the Security Council summit, the work of the Security Council itself and our follow-up. It also gives us a chance to talk seriously and substantively about what the Security Council has done since September 2000. The Security Council summit highlighted the need for action, I think, in two broad areas. One is peacekeeping, especially in Africa, the need to strengthen United Nations capabilities and the absolute necessity of doing a better job. It also addressed the need for more openness and engagement with the broader United Nations membership and with regional organizations and other international actors. Among some, I think, there was a sense that we could all do better. I think that the last six months or more have shown that we have made progress in that regard. During a recent open debate, the representative of one Member State remarked that peacekeeping successes were not made public often enough. That is equally true when it comes to meeting the goals we have set for ourselves and our successors. We have made significant progress towards achieving the goals elaborated in the Security Council millennium declaration. I think we are on the road to doing even better. On peacekeeping, the declaration clearly addressed the need for the Security Council to enhance its effectiveness, especially in dealing with internal conflicts in Africa. The Council marked the need to adopt clear, credible and achievable mandates and, in fact, is doing so, most recently in adjusting its approach to new circumstances in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The declaration's commitment to the safety of peacekeepers and to credible, capable peacekeeping has marked the way forward in Sierra Leone. The Council acted quickly on the Brahimi peacekeeping recommendations within its purview. We have taken specific steps to strengthen cooperation with troop- contributing countries, especially under Singapore's presidency. The United States has strongly endorsed this activity. The model used with countries contributing troops to the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone has, by now, more or less been endorsed by all Member States and we are operating on a new level there. And the new Working Group on peacekeeping operations is considering ways to make the interaction between troop contributors, the Council and the Secretariat even more meaningful. We have pushed that and are committed to seeing that effort succeed. The United States has honoured the summit declaration's call for international action to prevent the illegal flow of small arms into areas of conflict through the joint declaration of the United Nations and the Southern African Development Community on small arms. In a true innovation in its work, the Council is addressing trafficking and exploitation of high-value commodities with important work on conflict diamonds and an effort, made earlier today, to address the way blood money fuels further conflict and instability. The declaration calls on us to bring to justice those who commit serious violations of international humanitarian law, and the recent international efforts to establish a war-crimes tribunal for Sierra Leone and to expand the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda honour that call. Another provision of the declaration emphasized the determination to continue to sensitize peacekeeping personnel on the prevention and control of HIV/AIDS. In January, our public debate on HIV/AIDS intensified the work begun with Security Council 1308 (2000). There has also been significant progress in working more closely with regional organizations, particularly in Africa, Latin America and Europe. The Secretary-General recently convened a meeting of regional organizations that was a truly innovative effort, and just recently the Council met with representatives of the Economic Community of West African States, the Chairman-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. We have also made strides in improving the working methods and transparency of the Council; the working methods of the Council have changed considerably - perhaps more than many people realize - from the first time I was here 10 years ago. There is much more effort to find consensus, much more openness to exchange with other organizations and actors, much more transparency and a much greater recognition of the need for partnerships - I stress the plural - to be effective. Important elements of Security Council reform, which were supported by so many countries during the Millennium Summit, and, indeed, which have been mentioned by many speakers today, are becoming a reality. As to future steps, Council members, meeting at head of State level on 7 September last, laid out a clear road map. This is a road map of actions - things we should and must do. We have received a strong message from the Secretary-General, repeated in the documents that the delegation of Ukraine circulated for this open debate. To paraphrase that message, only action that is prompt, united, effective and pursued with skill and discipline, can halt conflict, restore peace and maintain confidence in the United Nations - a worthy goal, I would say. That is certainly the right way to look at it. We must not become overly absorbed in looking at our own processes; we need to be very absorbed in looking at our actions and their results. We must not become prey to political theatre, which leads away from or impedes action. How do we move from intentions to actions? The Council needs to address real problems, as we did yesterday with regard to Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans, and today with regard to West Africa. Furthermore, an essential concrete step- actually, a precondition - would be to demonstrate our collective support for the Brahimi implementation process and make that a reality, and to continue the progress we have made. We need to examine closely the comprehensive review of the resources of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations when it comes out in May, in order to make informed, well-justified decisions to further enhance capabilities. Additionally, enhancing the capacity of the United Nations to plan for and manage civilian police operations would greatly contribute to lasting security in post-conflict States. This has to become an important component of the work of the United Nations for addressing earlier stages of conflict and also for addressing post-conflict situations. Many speakers today called for Council action to be more rapid and more effective, and for the Council to enforce its decisions and support international legitimacy and international law. That is certainly correct. But for that to happen, the Council and the membership must realize that the Council is not solely its own master. It needs stronger instruments, especially as outlined in the Brahimi report, but in other areas, too, that we have discussed in the recent past. Very importantly, it needs the support of, and implementation and follow-up by, the international community. It needs to recognize- we all need to recognize- that the ultimate responsibility for resolving conflict and building peace lies with the parties, as set out in the Council declaration in September. The United States firmly intends to proceed down the path we opened - or, rather, clearly defined - last September. Moving forward vigilantly on this agenda is the best way to make our intentions more real - the topic we set for ourselves today.

Mr. Jerandi (Tunisia) (spoke in French): I, too, would like to associate myself with other speakers in welcoming the initiative of your country, Mr. President, to organize this open debate. The choice of this subject reaffirms the sustained commitment of your country to contribute to the strengthening of the United Nations, as Mr. Leonid Kuchma, President of Ukraine, explained so well in his letter of 27 February 2001 addressed to the Secretary-General. The relevance of the choice of this subject has been shown in the statements made by representatives of States Members of the United Nations, and in our view, this is a valuable contribution to assisting the Security Council and further strengthening its ability to discharge, with due effectiveness and credibility, the responsibilities conferred upon it under the Charter. Furthermore, this is the subject matter, as well as the objective, of resolution 1318 (2000) and, now, six months after the adoption of the resolution, we must take stock of the follow-up given by the Security Council to the commitments that it undertook at the highest level. In this regard, and after having listened with great interest to the various statements, my delegation would like to make several points. First, in engaging in an assessment of the results achieved by the Council in implementing the various provisions of resolution 1318 (2000), we must keep in mind from the outset that the resolution contains short-term and medium-term commitments, as well as others for which implementation will require more time. Consideration of the results of the work of the Security Council during the six months that followed the adoption of resolution 1318 (2000) reveals that the Council has begun to provide effective follow-up for several of these commitments, in particular those that lent themselves to immediate implementation. This is especially the case with regard to the adoption of measures within the framework of resolution 1327 (2000) following up the Brahimi report, in order to make it possible to strengthen the capacity of the United Nations in peacekeeping operations. These measures include spelling out the mandates of peacekeeping operations and strengthening cooperation and consultation with troop-contributing countries. Secondly, if they are to be effectively implemented, the objectives set out in resolution 1318 (2000) will require concrete support from all Member States and bodies of the United Nations, each in accordance with its mandate and competencies, and from all the international and regional organizations involved. In this regard, we welcome the fact that the Council has been careful to ensure that, during consideration of certain items on its agenda, it has worked in close cooperation with the regional and subregional organizations, in particular those in Africa, such as the Economic Community of West African States. We also welcome the Council's initiative to meet with the signatories of the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement in connection with the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. These initiatives, in particular those concerning partnerships with regional organizations, together with the Security Council missions to certain regions, are a clear demonstration of the Council's commitment to strengthening the effectiveness of its role by engaging in direct contact with the parties that are in the best position to help it grapple with the problems under discussion and to provide appropriate responses. Thirdly, the concept of the maintenance of international peace and security, which experience has shown to be one that is evolving, can no longer be restricted only to conventional peacekeeping operations. This was demonstrated both during discussions of the Brahimi report and during the thematic Council debates, in particular that on peace-building, which my country initiated during its presidency of the Council during the month of February. The debate on peace-building, as well as the presidential statement that followed, highlighted the fact that, if international peace and security are to be maintained in a sustainable way, there is a need to provide for the drawing up and implementation of a comprehensive, consistent, integrated and joint strategy to tackle, effectively and with determination, the underlying causes of conflict, in particular those of an economic and social nature. This clearly must be a collective undertaking, and it can succeed only if all those involved take on their part of the responsibility within the framework of coordinated action. Fourthly, our debate today has demonstrated that strengthening the effectiveness and credibility of the Council is a concern we all share, and one that should continue to be at the top of the Council's priorities. In this regard, we believe that the Security Council should follow-up the expectations of the Member States of the Organization by continuing down the path of enshrining transparency in its work and by proceeding to the necessary reforms in the area of sanctions. Those reforms should lead to institutionalizing clear and precise parameters, common to all sanctions regimes imposed under the Charter, and should take into account the adverse impact of sanctions and the provisions of the Charter, in particular those of Article 50. We cannot, of course, say that the Security Council has always been able to respond - and respond positively - to every expectation of the international community. Examples of this, although not unique ones, are those of protecting the Palestinian civilian population of the occupied territories and the final lifting of sanctions against Libya and against the Iraqi population. It is clear that the lethargy of the Council should prompt us to preserve its credibility. I agree with Ambassador Greenstock that the Council does not have a magic wand. That is true; but the Council must also have the capacity to evaluate the urgency of situations and to react to them without making any calculation beyond the desire to preserve peace and security. In closing, I would like to emphasize that while the main responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security devolves upon the Security Council, the success of any undertaking in that area is a collective responsibility. That responsibility must be reflected at all levels and by all actors involved through genuine political will and the mobilization of all necessary means - in particular financial ones - to meet the challenges of peace, stability and development, which are integral elements of any effort that we want to a lasting one. The Secretary-General said this morning that the resolutions of the Security Council are not self- implementing. As the international community we must all see to it that we ensure their implementation.

The President: I thank the representative of Tunisia for his kind words addressed to my country.

Mr. Strammen (Norway): We welcome this opportunity to revisit the outcomes of the Security Council summit held six months ago. The summit was truly a remarkable occasion in the history of the Council and was an event that contributed greatly to the success of the Millennium Summit of the United Nations. The summit adopted resolution 1318 (2000), which contained the declaration on ensuring an effective role for the Security Council in the maintenance of international peace and security, particularly in Africa. The declaration represents an ambitious long-term agenda. Although progress towards the implementation of the agenda is already evident, it would not be fair to undertake a full assessment of its implementation after just a few months. Rather, the focus should be on the need for effective follow-up. Turning to the questions raised in the very useful explanatory note for this meeting, it must be stressed at the outset that it will not be possible to address them in the detail or as thoroughly as they deserve in a short intervention. I would, however, like to make one general remark before making specific comments on some of the six issues. That general remark is that it is noteworthy that each and every one of the six questions raised points to the need for enhanced cooperation and interaction between the different bodies, organs and organizations of the United Nations. If there is, therefore, one main conclusion to be drawn, it is that of the imperative need for the different arms of the United Nations to improve their coherence, cooperation and communication in order to enhance the relevance of the United Nations. It is not the Security Council that will make a decisive difference in a country sliding into conflict or recovering from it. It is not the decisions of the Economic and Social Council, or of the General Assembly, that will ensure stable economic growth and sustainable development in a particular developing country. It is not the programmes of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) that will pull people out of poverty, nor the projects of the United Nations Children's Fund that will provide a better future for all children. It is not the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs that can ensure that humanitarian needs are met, or that can prevent new humanitarian crises from occurring. Any real and lasting difference for the people we are trying to assist will only come about as a result of the combination of all these efforts and as a result of the relevance, timeliness and adequacy of the assistance of the United Nations system as a whole. The authority of the Security Council depends to a great extent on its ability to demonstrate that it gives equal priority to the maintenance of international peace and security in every region of the world. If one asks any member of the humanitarian community, they will readily provide a number of examples of conflicts and humanitarian crises that do not receive adequate attention. In this context, it is of particular importance to underline that the Secretariat must be provided with improved capacity and resources to notify and act at an early stage where a situation is deteriorating or may result in conflict. In that way adequate assessment and response from the international community can be better ensured at an early stage, no matter where the situation occurs. One of the most encouraging results of the Security Council's summit declaration and of the General Assembly's Millennium Declaration is the consensus that emerged on the need for comprehensive peace-building that addresses conflict at all stages - from prevention to settlement to post-conflict peace- building. During the last few months, that consensus has been further developed - inter alia, during the taking of the UNDP Governing Council decision in January this year on the role of UNDP in crisis and post-conflict situations - as well as in the presidential statement on peace-building adopted by the Council during the Tunisian presidency in February. In addition to the general remark I made earlier, it is clear that putting that general consensus into operation represents formidable challenges for all parts of the United Nations system. But it is also a main challenge for individual member countries to strengthen their efforts to achieve consistency in their own policies and in their participation in different United Nations bodies and organizations. Another element of that emerging consensus is the need to address the root causes of conflict, including their economic causes. Effective conflict prevention and resolution makes this as necessary as it is difficult. One tool to address the root causes of conflict available to the Council is to adopt smarter sanctions in order to create incentives for the parties concerned to resolve a conflict. However, experience has shown that it is increasingly difficult to agree on the usefulness, formulation and implementation of sanctions regimes in particular situations. The discussions on sanctions against Liberia, which were successfully completed this morning, represent one recent case that easily comes to mind. While we maintain that sanctions regimes are still useful tools for the Security Council to fulfil its mandate in particular situations, the controversies involved in implementing them point to a need to consider this issue in a broader context. What additional tools and actions are available to the Council to effectively address the root causes of conflict? What consideration should determine which action or combination of actions to pursue? To what extent does this objective require a system-wide approach that goes beyond the mandate of individual bodies and organs of the United Nations? We believe these questions should be given appropriate attention in the further follow-up to the summit declaration. Finally, even the United Nations is not an island. To be effective and relevant the United Nations must pursue and develop effective cooperation with other actors, such as regional organizations, civil society and the private sector. The very substantive results of the meeting held between the United Nations and regional organizations on 6 and 7 February are an example of the benefits that can be achieved by closer cooperation with regional organizations. We welcome the guiding principles for cooperation in peace-building that emanated from the meeting, and we encourage active follow-up both from the United Nations and from regional organizations on the many possible cooperative activities identified during the meeting.

Mr. Cooney (Ireland): I would like to thank the President of the Council for organizing today's debate, particularly for proposing that non-members of the Council speak first. If constructive criticism is healthy, then the Council will surely emerge stronger from today's discussions. The distinguished representative of Pakistan is right when he points out that the Security Council is not a debating club. But, I am sure that he will agree that the kind of critical examination in which we are engaged today is necessary if the Council is to fulfil its mandate to the satisfaction of the broader United Nations membership. Let me say at the outset that Ireland supports the remarks that the representative of Sweden, representing his country's Presidency of the European Union, has already made during this debate, especially in regard to their focus on Africa 4 a high priority for my country- the need to work towards full implementation of the recommendations of the Brahimi report (S/2000/809) and the importance of closer cooperation between the Security Council, the Secretariat and the troop-contributing countries. This last point was raised by a number of delegations earlier today, and Ireland has worked hard on the Council and will continue to do so in support of improved involvement of the troop-contributing countries in the preparation of Council decisions on peacekeeping missions. Security Council resolution 1318 (2000), adopted by the Council last September, covered a wide range of concerns. In contrast to many who have already spoken, I will focus on just one of these concerns: the root causes of conflict, especially their economic and social dimensions. In doing so, I am echoing the remarks of a number of delegations that have already spoken. I will also be looking at an area that is beyond the exclusive competence of the Security Council and touches on its interface with the broader international community. The Security Council has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. This is a wide responsibility that must not be confined to addressing crises that have already erupted. It must also involve a proactive, preventive approach, pursued as part of the collective effort of the wider United Nations system, where our common purpose is to act together to prevent and remove threats to peace and solve collective economic, social, cultural and humanitarian problems. These responsibilities and purposes - those of the Security Council and the bodies that make up the wider United Nations Organization - are intertwined and interdependent. As the distinguished representative of Croatia said, the United Nations Security Council must use its Visibility and its prestige to consult with and augment the efforts of the United Nations bodies principally charged with development. The distinguished representative of Peru made a similar point. Peace and development are also intertwined and interdependent. This was recognized at the Millennium Summit, where heads of State or Government resolved to achieve a fully coordinated approach to the problems of peace and development. For the United Nations this requires the Council, as Norway has just said, to ensure that the different parts of this Organization are coherent, cooperate and mutually reinforce each other's efforts. I want to stress here, as did the distinguished representative of Egypt this morning, that such coordination must take place in full respect for the competence of the organizations and institutions concerned, although, as the United Kingdom mentioned earlier, the dividing lines are not always clear. While we may sometimes disagree about the specific event that sparked any particular conflict, we can all agree that conflict causes increased poverty and injustice and that sustainable development is not possible without peace. It is a fact that of the 34 countries furthest from reaching the international development targets, 22 are affected by current or recent conflicts. As a result of conflict, the poorest become even poorer. We see the United Nations development arm, with its global outreach, as an important instrument in addressing poverty. And we take the view that we, the international community, must reinforce our efforts to support, by word and deed, a strengthened and coherent United Nations effort to tackle some of the root causes and results of conflict: poverty, disease, human rights abuse, the lack of education or, just as importantly, its misuse in fostering racial and ethnic hatreds. For the United Nations, when acting in crisis countries, this surely means that efforts in crisis management should reinforce long-term development objectives, rather than distort them and that the United Nations must have clear lines and definitions of authority and clear organizational structures. It means that every effort must be made to ensure coherence and coordination and to ensure that lessons are learned from the past and best practice pursued. It means that peace-building efforts require the closest cooperation and coordination between all parts of the United Nations system - in particular, the Department of Political Affairs, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the United Nations Development Programme. At the field level there is clearly a significant role for the United Nations Development Programme as a capacity-builder in the governance area and in the context of the resident coordinator system. Finally, and crucially, all parts of the United Nations system should seek to mutually reinforce each other. I might also mention that there is considerable work on the important issue of conflict prevention being undertaken in a number of different forums at the moment. The European Union has recently focused on developing a comprehensive strategic approach to conflict prevention, which will be on the agenda of the Gothenburg European Council. In addition, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Development Assistance Committee high-level meeting in April will consider guidelines on conflict prevention. It is important that the United Nations and these different forums coordinate with each other to ensure that the strategies and policies being developed in this area are coherent and reinforce one another. We need in the Security Council and elsewhere to pursue a join up approach, both in the United Nations and across the international community as a whole. In this context, we very much welcome the initiative just announced by the United Kingdom for its forthcoming presidency. To conclude, I have not and could not respond today to all the points raised this morning, but we have taken careful note of them and will take them into account during the remainder of our tenure on the Security Council. We are ready to support the presidency in drafting a result-focused, forward- looking and concise text by which the Council will signal to the wider United Nations family and the world at larger its determination to follow up on today's important debate. Of course, words on their own are not enough. As the Secretary-General reminded us at the beginning of our discussion, they must be backed by action. We must, as Croatia said this morning, practice what we preach.

Mr. Neewoor (Mauritius): Let me begin by congratulating Ukraine once again on assuming the presidency of the Security Council for the month of March. I also thank Tunisia for its very effective presidency of the Council last month. My delegation is grateful to you, Mr. President, for organizing this open debate on the follow-up to the Security Council summit held six months ago alongside of the Millennium Summit. We are also grateful to your delegation for the comprehensive background paper you have circulated with the aim of spurring meaningful discussion on this extremely important topic. We appreciate that for today's meeting you have decided on the format introduced under Singapore's presidency that allows the non-members of the Security Council to speak first. This format enables the Security Council members to have the benefit of the views of the general membership of the United Nations and enables us to react to those views to the extent possible in an interactive process. This, we have no doubt, is much appreciated by the general membership. When the leaders of the countries serving on the Security Council meet in a special summit, as it happened six months ago, and, following their serious deliberations, agree to a declaration that incorporates their collective views on a subject as important as "Ensuring an effective role for the Security Council in the maintenance of international peace and security, particularly in Africa", such a declaration not only requires our serious attention but should be implemented by all possible means as a priority. It is unfortunate that this important declaration has remained more or less dormant since its adoption at the summit level on 7 September last year. Indeed, the declaration sums up most of the concerns the members of the United Nations have regarding the effectiveness of the Security Council today, as the apex world body for the maintenance of international peace and security. It addresses the serious challenges the Security Council faces in carrying out its responsibilities today in changing circumstances and makes important proposals for the way forward. It reaffirms the need for reform, so that representation in the Security Council can become more equitable and its decisions more credible. There is no doubt that the institution of the Security Council as the instrument for the maintenance of international peace and security is in urgent need of rethinking if it is to continue to assume the role the Charter has given it. The Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, speaking at the Security Council summit six months ago, could not have better portrayed the present state of affairs: "Too many vulnerable communities in too many regions of the world now hesitate to look to the United Nations to assist them in their hour of need. No amount of resolutions or statements can change that reality; only action can: prompt, united, effective action pursued with skill and discipline to halt conflict and to restore the peace. Only such determined action can restore the reputation of the United Nations as a credible force for peace and justice". (S/PV4194) We know that this important statement of the Secretary-General, which he reiterated this morning, is fully shared by most United Nations Members and is particularly relevant to the Security Council. We all agree that the maintenance of international peace and security has become a much more complex proposition than was originally envisaged in the United Nations Charter. Unfortunately, we have not adapted our structures and methods to deal with the new situation. The Security Council, which has the primary responsibility in this regard, continues to function within the parameters of a world order that has long since changed, and does not reflect the realities of our times. Its decision-making is, more often than not, flawed and inconsistent as well as lacking in credibility. We believe that the ongoing discussion in the General Assembly on reform of the Security Council needs to be concluded expeditiously in order to enable the Council to function more efficiently in fulfilling the responsibilities conferred upon it by the United Nations Charter. We would like to propose that we consider having a group of wise men, including former statesmen, discuss those issues of reform which continue to elude solutions in our discussions and make proposals to us for further consideration, because we need to move on with reforms of the Security Council. The manner in which conflicts are addressed presently by the Security Council can at best be described as "firefighting" with inadequate material, financial and human resources. We send rumbling and ill-equipped fire engines, often much too late, to contain raging fires of conflicts, and then realize that we have entrusted an impossible job to our firemen. Somalia, Angola and Sierra Leone are examples in this regard. At times our fire engines do not even start, as we saw in the case of Rwanda, where millions were being killed in a cruel genocide and were crying for help from the international community, and also in the case of Palestine last year. We know, furthermore, that the Democratic Republic of the Congo has waited more than 20 months for the deployment of a peacekeeping operation. Obviously, United Nations peacekeeping in Africa has been lacking in even-handedness, to the extent that there are allegations of double standards when it comes to deployment on the African continent. The Security Council summit declaration appropriately called for particular attention to be given to peacekeeping in Africa. The Brahimi report addressed many of the shortcomings of United Nations peacekeeping operations and has made important recommendations, some of which are being implemented gradually. One very significant recommendation, which is also being implemented, is that there should be regular consultations, at every stage of peacekeeping operations, between the Security Council and the troop- contributing countries. We are hopeful that the Working Group on Peacekeeping Operations established last month by the Security Council, under the chairmanship of Ambassador Curtis Ward of Jamaica, will deal with all relevant aspects for further improvement of United Nations peacekeeping operations. The imposition of mandatory sanctions is the only other tool available to the Security Council for enforcing its decisions. Unfortunately, the Security Council itself does not have the capacity to ensure compliance with its sanctions regimes. In such a situation, the sanctions are violated with impunity and often fail to serve their intended purpose. We then have a situation in which everything remains at a standstill, sometimes for years. We also have situations in which sanctions bitterly affect the people rather than the defaulting regimes for which they are intended, and the sanctions become the subject of popular outcry because of the humanitarian crisis to which they often lead. The Security Council summit declaration referred to this problem, and it is now for us collectively to address this important issue in a comprehensive manner and come up with an appropriate solution. The maintenance of international peace and security, as referred to in the United Nations Charter, has larger connotations than just peacekeeping operations. The Security Council summit declaration rightly recognizes this and emphasizes that peace- building and identifying the root causes of conflicts should be given due attention by the Security Council and the United Nations in general. In order to address these issues, there is a need for cooperation between the Security Council and the other organs of the United Nations system, in particular the Economic and Social Council. We believe that a special unit should be set up in the United Nations Secretariat to facilitate coordination between the Security Council and the various United Nations bodies in the areas of post- conflict peace-building. The maintenance of international peace and security also entails the prevention of conflicts. The Security Council summit addressed this issue and suggested that regional offices of the Security Council be established, with the responsibility of preventing conflicts. We strongly support that proposal. We believe that such regional offices could also work closely with the regional organizations, which, too, have an important role in conflict prevention as well as in the management of conflicts. Finally, I would like to suggest that the Security Council establish a working group with responsibility to make recommendations to the Council on implementation of the summit declaration. Furthermore, consideration should be given to the possibility of holding a ministerial meeting of the Security Council during the next session of the General Assembly for a review of the Security Council summit declaration.

The President: I thank the representative of Mauritius for his statement, which contained very important proposals as to the outcome of today's discussion.

Mr. Sorcar (Bangladesh): We are grateful to you, Mr. President, for arranging this debate. It has been a very timely initiative. It was indeed essential that we undertake a follow-up of the Council summit now that six months have elapsed. We appreciate the well- researched background paper provided by your delegation. That paper picks up, as is most appropriate, the salient points in resolution 1318 (2000). You have also included the highlights of the statements made by the heads of State and Government of the Council members at their 7 September summit. This is very pertinent to our present exercise. I shall not dwell much on what the Council has done over the last six months. That is outlined in your paper. I shall concentrate on what has not been done and what we should do in the days ahead. In doing so, we shall base our comments essentially on resolution 1318 (2000), the provisions of which are supported by the leaders of the Council member countries. In their statements the heads of State and Government also expressed views and made concrete proposals, which were not the subject of a consensus-seeking exercise. Nevertheless, those ideas deserve our serious attention, particularly when we are engaged in follow-up of the summit. We shall, of course, favour taking all those proposals made at the summit into account when we consider the outcome of the two days of debate. Let me recall the appeal of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to the United Nations at the last Council summit: to choose and sustain government of the people, by the people and for the people. This is clearly in line with the emphasis put on democracy, good governance, the rule of law and human rights. Many of today's conflicts have their roots in non-democratic - I would rather say dictatorial - regimes. Protection of democracy in many cases may mean preserving peace or preventing conflicts. These institutions, coupled with sustainable development, constitute the foundations for durable peace. In his 13 April 1998 report on the causes of conflict in Africa, the Secretary-General did recognize bad governance as a major source of conflict. No one could possibly dispute the fact that protection of the rights of minorities and respect for unlimited freedom and human rights contribute to conflict prevention. The Prime Minister of Bangladesh proposed the establishment of child soldier-free zones. We believe in keeping with our commitments to the future generations. This objective should be pursued by the membership and should be supported by the United Nations system and other actors. Bangladesh has also stressed that peace and security should be conceived basically in terms of human security. The ravages of war are experienced by human individuals, a reminder echoed in the statement of the former High Commissioner for Refugees, Mrs. Sadako Ogata. Turning to resolution 1318, we shall limit our comments to the six central themes you have suggested, Mr. President. The basic question before us is whether the Council has lived up to its commitments. A pertinent question will also be whether the Secretariat, other organs of the United Nations, funds and programmes of the United Nations system and the Bretton Woods institutions have assumed their respective roles in advancing the objectives. Most of all, as the Secretary-General has stressed this morning, whether Member States - in the first place the Council members - have engaged in their respective capitals in seeking to implement the summit pledges. First, Africa. The year 2000 started with the month of January designated as the month of Africa, under the United States presidency. Since then, all the months of the year remained, as the situations demanded, focused on the conflicts in Africa, on African issues. This was true for the months before and after the summit. Since the summit, actions on Eritrea- Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and West Africa and our action this morning with respect to Liberia speaks of a more proactive and resolute role of the Security Council. It would sound rather self-congratulatory if we enumerated our achievements. It will be difficult for the Council to judge its own performance in an objective manner. The comments and views of the United Nations membership are hence essential, and we are happy that a good number of non-members of the Council participated in the debate. Second, "forgotten conflicts". The Council heard elaborate comments on longstanding disputes from several delegations. I shall touch upon the question in connection with the preparedness gap, lest that give rise to cases of oblivion on the part of the Council. The situation in Burundi is a case in point, but the Council has certainly not forgotten Burundi. The situation is reviewed every month. But possibly we have forgotten our responsibility to provide, or at least to plan to provide, a peacekeeping mission there, the situation permitting, as called for in the Arusha Peace Agreement. The Council should redeem itself of the tradition of doing too little too late in the case of Burundi, which is at hand. Way back in September 2000, the Secretariat was requested to report on the matter. The report is still awaited. Third, points three, four and five of the background paper relating to peace operations. The timely adoption of resolution 1327 (2000) as follow-up of the Brahimi Panel report has been acclaimed, rightly so. With this, a solemn commitment of the summit has been fulfilled. Attention now needs to be given to the implementation of the agreed provisions. I shall focus on the provision under section III of the annex, as it contains essential operational elements and as most of the others have been covered by other speakers. The chapeau of this section calls for development, within the United Nations system and more widely, of comprehensive and integrated strategies to address the root causes of conflicts, including their economic and social dimensions. The representative of the United Kingdom has set the limits and has indicated the framework for such an endeavour, which the United Kingdom considers ambitious, a feeling that is shared. We agree with those observations. The last provision in this section underlines the importance of enhancing the United Nations capacity for rapid deployment of peacekeeping operations and urges Member States to provide sufficient and timely resources. We would like to remind ourselves of this commitment on this occasion. An assessment of the progress in translating these pledges into practice will require a report by the Secretary-General with inputs from the Member States. We hope that part of this, particularly the question addressing the root causes of conflict, will be covered in the upcoming report on conflict prevention. The rest of the section is devoted to strengthening United Nations peacekeeping operations. The Council committed itself to adopting clearly defined, credible, achievable and appropriate mandates. Has it kept its commitment? It is better that we hear comments on this from the United Nations membership outside the Council. The Council also agreed to include in these mandates effective measures for the security and safety of United Nations personnel and wherever feasible, for the protection of the civilian population. The safety and security of peacekeepers is paramount in our mind, as a troop-contributing country. This does not mean that we do not accept any risks. Bangladesh sends its soldiers and other peacekeeping personnel to United Nations missions throughout the continents, including in the most perilous areas. We accept certain sacrifice, along with other Members of the United Nations, but our concern here is not to repeat the experiences we had in Rwanda or in Sierra Leone. Another pledge was to take steps to assist the United Nations to obtain trained and properly equipped personnel for peacekeeping operations. In this connection, we would recall the observations made in the Brahimi Panel's report on the question of the commitment gap and the contribution of those with the greatest capacity and means. We would also recall the observations of the Secretary-General in this regard following the withdrawal of the Sierra Leonean and Jordanian battalions. The protection of civilians received a guarded commitment covered by the saving clause, where feasible. In the case of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the reverse concept of operations that we have supported, we have taken shelter under the saving clause. We shall be judged by what happens on the ground to the civilians. Strengthening consultations with troop- contributing countries when deciding on peacekeeping operations was another major commitment. Thanks to the Singapore presidency, the Council has been engaged in this matter. The upgrading of United Nations capacity for planning, establishing, deploying and conducting peacekeeping operations was a major commitment in this regard. In December, the General Assembly approved 95 posts following the Brahimi recommendations. As this was an emergency requirement, we hope that the Secretariat is taking steps to make appointments to the posts in an expeditious manner, particularly as we know there are the usual delays. In conclusion, we would suggest three concrete steps as a follow-up to today's debate. First, as to the recommendation of the Secretary-General, we may take steps to engage our Government, where it is deficient, for the national implementation of resolution 1318 (2000) and, of course, of the commitments made by our respective heads of State and Government. We could possibly also think of involving the legislative branch of our Governments in our respective countries. Secondly, concerning the initiative for a United Nations system-wide follow-up of the resolution, we have pointed out some of the areas. A report of the Secretary-General, possibly after six months, will allow another half-yearly review in a more substantive manner. The comments of the United Nations membership and civil society, including the non- governmental organizations and academia, would provide useful inputs to the report. The report will be most useful for a possible ministerial meeting proposed by Mauritius - a proposal that my delegation supports. The Council had earlier envisaged such a meeting in the context of conflict prevention. Thirdly, we might think of involving the peoples in whose name the Charter establishes the United Nations. We spoke of involving the legislative branch. The Inter-Parliamentary Union is an institution which could promote follow-up of United Nations resolutions, in particular the Council's. We could, in our national context, explore appropriate steps to inform and to involve our citizens. The power of making major decisions has to come from the people. Finally, we are happy to note that the Council is making a slow but steady departure from the fire- brigade approach in favour of a comprehensive approach to peace and security. This indicates the recognition that the Council cannot go it alone when it comes to the question of peace and security. We agree with the constructive competition alluded to by the representative of the United Kingdom, which would seek to promote the widest possible partnerships, as underscored by the United States, for peace. We have noted some of the major initiatives and progress. However, there is no room for complacency. The Council has to do better. Bangladesh will continue to make its contribution to our collective endeavour.

The President: Let me express my sincere gratitude to all delegations for their substantive contributions to our discussion today. I believe that this debate has proved its timeliness and usefulness. The need to conduct regular reviewing of the implementation of the decisions taken by the Security Council was one of the major motivations that prompted the Ukrainian presidency of the Council to convene this debate. Indeed, such reviewing could become one of the concrete means of ensuring that the Council's decisions are put into action. The presidency is very encouraged by the many action-oriented comments and practical proposals that have been put forward by delegations with a View to contributing to the realization of commitments undertaken by the Security Council at its summit meeting. The presidency believes that it is very important not to waste these proposals and we will think very carefully, in consultation with all members of the Council, about the most appropriate way of putting them in writing in order to formalize, as the Ambassador of Ireland put it, a result-focused outcome of this debate. There are no further speakers inscribed on my list. The Security Council has thus concluded the present stage of its consideration of the item on its agenda. The meeting rose at 5.50pm.