S/PV.7352 Security Council

The Security Council will now begin its consideration of the item on its agenda. I shall now give the floor to the members of the Security Council.

I thank the President and the entire mission of Chad for their leadership during this busy month of December. To our Chilean colleagues, we wish the very best for January. They can count on our support. Today I would like to share our delegation’s views on some areas where the Security Council has been productive, while also looking ahead to what we will need to continue to focus on in January and beyond into the new year. Although I joined my country’s delegation to the United Nations very recently, I understand from my team and from discussions with predecessors that this has been a singularly demanding year in the Security Council. This year the Council has deliberated on continuing crises, such as in Syria; nascent or mounting situations as in Mali and the Central African Republic; deteriorating security across North Africa, including acts of violence and terror committed by Boko Haram and other groups; tensions in the Middle East and Gaza, the emergent threat of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the risk of foreign terrorist fighters, to name just a few. That comes on top of the already significant work required to mandate and oversee 16 peacekeeping operations, 11 political and peacebuilding missions and 15 sanctions committees. With this significant workload, we know how difficult it can be to maintain perspective and identify and focus on priority tasks. As we examine what we have done over the month, we must do so while looking forward. The Al-Assad regime’s brutal tactics remain the root cause of Syria’s problems today, including 12.2 million people in need, nearly 5 million displaced and the rise of ISIL. The humanitarian situation remains grim, with nearly 10 million people food-insecure and 11 million in need of clean water and sanitation. Meanwhile, ISIL’s terror in northern Syria continues to reduce humanitarian access to 2.7 million Syrians in need of aid. We and our coalition partners will continue our efforts to degrade ISIL forces in Syria and Iraq. We support Special Envoy De Mistura’s efforts to help reduce violence and alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people. The United States supports any ceasefire that would provide relief to Syrian civilians and is consistent with humanitarian principles, but ultimately there can be no genuine and long-term stability so long as President Al-Assad remains in power. This year we saw the illegal annexation of Crimea and the deaths of 298 people in the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in Ukraine. We have held 27 meetings in the Security Council this year on Ukraine, and while the situation has indeed evolved over the year, the root of the problem remains the same. We are similarly concerned about the situation in Georgia, and we will need to watch carefully the ramifications of Russia’s treaty with the Abkhaz region. The United States supports the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia. Over the past 12 months, in South Sudan the Council has witnessed tragic, deplorable and heartbreaking events caused by the country’s political and military leaders. The young nation has plunged into a man- made political, security and humanitarian catastrophe. The international community has responded with a united voice, strong regional leadership through the Intergovernmental Authority on Development and the African Union, hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian assistance, and a United Nations peacekeeping mission — the United Nations Mission in South Sudan — made up of 68 troop-contributing countries, resulting in thousands of lives being saved and famine averted in 2014. But the coming weeks and months will be critical. In the absence of the establishment and implementation of a credible peace agreement, the risks of famine, State failure and the regionalization of the conflict are all too real. It will be incumbent on all of us to make peace in South Sudan a top international priority in 2015. On the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) will need to pursue operations against the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR) once the 2 January deadline passes. We understand that MONUSCO will be in a difficult position in the months ahead as the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has pushed for a significant reduction in the Mission’s troop strength, while simultaneously needing significant logistical support from the Mission to assist in elections and to combat the Allied Democratic Forces and the FDLR. Any coming changes to MONUSCO’s size should be based on a military assessment, and not on political considerations. We also urge Council members to continue to support the Government of Yemen in its efforts to restore the country’s stability. The peaceful participation of the Houthis, and that of all of Yemen’s diverse communities, is important to the ongoing political process, but the Houthis must engage with the Government in good faith. The use of violence by any party to achieve political objectives is unacceptable. This month, the Council sent a strong message that the international community is serious about the implementation of sanctions against those obstructing Yemen’s political transition. We will continue to identify individuals who fuel violence and interfere with the transition, and will impose further targeted sanctions on them. We also strongly condemn last week’s bomb attack in Rada, Yemen, which killed dozens of people, including at least 15 girls riding a school bus. The Yemeni people have lived with senseless violence for too long. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula remains the gravest threat to Yemen’s security, and we remain committed to our partnership with Yemen to counter the shared threat posed by Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. Unfortunately, the vicious attack last week in Yemen was not the only senseless, large-scale act of brutal violence perpetrated against children. We were all horrified by the attacks on the school in Peshawar, Pakistan, last week that took the lives of so many innocent children. We condemn in the strongest possible terms this horrific attack. By targeting students and teachers, those terrorists have once again shown their depravity. We stand with the people of Pakistan and reiterate the commitment of the United States to supporting the Government Pakistan in its efforts to combat terrorism and extremism and to promote peace and stability in the region. Despite these and other crises faced over the past year, my delegation continues to believe that through our collective efforts, we can achieve success in overcoming these challenges. I would like to thank Argentina, Australia, Luxembourg, the Republic of Korea and Rwanda for their service to the United Nations and the international community over the past two years. My delegation truly appreciates the spirit of cooperation and professionalism which they and their Council teams have all exhibited. We wish them well in the New Year and hope that long vacations for all are in order. To our incoming Council colleagues from Angola, Malaysia, New Zealand, Spain and Venezuela, we say “welcome”. We have much work to do together. I wish everyone happy holidays and a happy new year.

I would first like to thank Ambassador Cherif and the Chadian team for the superb work they have done in December. It is still a little early to uncork the champagne because our programme has filled up beyond the symbolic date set by this wrap-up debate, but we know that we are in good hands in dealing with this late-year urgent business. This monthly debate is obviously a bit unusual, and somewhat moving and special because in a few days we will say farewell to five marvelous colleagues and their teams. I tell them all — Maria, Joon, Sylvie, Gary, Eugène-Richard and Olivier — that I have thoroughly enjoyed working with them, as has my team. Two years of shared living in the Council have forged strong links that will survive the separation. For us, it has been an honour to work with them in a body that is so important to our Organization. We have not always agreed on everything. France, a very active, activist and even overactive penholder, has asked a great deal of them with the texts it has submitted, with sometimes very ambitious deadlines. They have always responded with great enthusiasm and expertise, faithful to their interests and values and to the desire to elevate us collectively. They have taken important initiatives and contributed their ideas, for which we warmly thank them. The time allotted to me here does not allow me to say a word to each of them individually, but we will have many opportunities to do so in the coming days. It is also a rather special debate because of its date. This being December, it is an opportunity to offer a status update on the past year and to outline prospects for 2015. I shall begin with two topics on which we have made insufficient progress because we have been unable to settle our differences. That is the case of Syria, obviously. Certainly, the work of eliminating Syria’s military chemical capabilities advanced in 2014, although there remain gray areas concerning the regime’s initial statements and concerning the repeated use of chlorine gas. Certainly, the Council opened new paths to humanitarian assistance by adopting important resolutions upon the initiative of Luxembourg, Australia and Jordan, to which I pay tribute. However, the Council remains divided on the political aspect of the crisis. That is why we must support the ongoing efforts of Staffan de Mistura. We hope that they will bear first fruits in 2015 and reopen a space for a political settlement. The same can be said regarding Ukraine, where Russia’s refusal to listen to the very clear messages of other Council members and the General Assembly has contributed to tensions and the impasse. Likewise, we are concerned about Russia’s initiatives to incorporate Abkhazia and South Ossetia, efforts that challenge international norms. We hope that in 2015 Russia will engage in real de-escalation efforts, both in terms of rhetoric and in practice; we actively encourage such de-escalation. President Hollande visited Moscow to promote a change in Russia’s approach, and France will continue to seek ways, without undermining its principles, to improve relations between Russia and its neighbours. As significant as they are, those divisions have not, to date — and I hope also in 2015 — prevented the Council from acting in many other crises, some of which sprung up in 2014. Such is the case regarding terrorism, our mobilization against the terrorist group Daesh and the Ebola outbreak, which has been judged to constitute a threat to international peace and security, as well as the crises in Africa. I will address two examples: the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In the Central African Republic, joint action on the part of the African, French, European and United Nations forces have helped to avoid the spectre of genocide, 20 years after the one in Rwanda. That mobilization — which took place on the initiative of France, but with the support of all — is a tribute to the United Nations. That effort must continue in 2015 to help the country get out of the rut that it finds itself in. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, vigorous action on the part of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and the Force Commander has served to enhance the image of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Crucial deadlines lie ahead in early 2015, including on commitments with regard to military actions against armed groups, starting with the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda, if they do not disarm; the reconfiguration of the United Nations presence, taking into account the strategic review under way; and the role of the United Nations in the light of the presidential elections. Boko Haram’s crimes can no longer go unpunished. France supports the countries of the region. It encourages regional initiatives to halt that terrorist organization. The crisis in Gaza this summer was a new and tragic reminder that the status quo is not an option. France believes that the Security Council must play its part in relaunching the peace process and in guiding the parties to a negotiated settlement. France will continue working with all parties in search of a consensus text, with that in mind. The year 2015 will be marked by two important events that we should not miss: the review of peacekeeping operations and the seventieth anniversary of the United Nations. In last month’s wrap-up session (see S/PV.7325), my delegation spoke about the review of peacekeeping operations, which I will not repeat, except to highlight its timeliness and state that it provides a unique opportunity to improve an instrument that, although it was not foreseen in the Charter, has become the most familiar face of the United Nations after, of course, our Secretary-General. France will make every effort in that regard. The year 2015 will also mark the seventieth anniversary of our Organization. France intends therefore to promote its initiative with regard to the veto in cases of mass atrocities. It also calls for significant progress on the issue of the expansion of the Security Council. Finally, I will mention a subject close to the heart of my delegation, namely, the attention focused on human rights issues in the daily work of the Council, and in particular, the situation in North Korea. Violations by the North Korean regime, as reported by the Commission of Inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, constitute, both in their severity and their magnitude, a threat to international peace and security. That situation justifies the full mobilization of the Security Council. I conclude by again thanking our Chadian presidency, expressing my gratitude to the outgoing five States and rejoicing in soon be able to welcome, around the table, the five newly elected members, to whom I wish good luck and pledge the full cooperation of my country.

Let me first of all congratulate you, Sir, and the entire Chadian delegation on the great success of this month’s presidency. Although we have had a very tight schedule, you have led our work efficiently with your able leadership. On the Middle East dossier, much work has been carried out by the Council in December and, indeed, throughout the year. However, as all who are present around the table realize, much more work remains to be done in the year ahead. In Syria, we are particularly concerned by the continuously increasing humanitarian challenges and their regional and global repercussions. In this month’s briefing (see S/PV.7342), Under- Secretary-General Amos reported to the Council that the number of Syrians requiring humanitarian assistance has now reached some 12 million people. In that regard, we welcome the adoption of resolution 2191 (2014), enabling the continuation of critical cross-border humanitarian access. Of course, without a negotiated political solution to the present conflict, no amount of humanitarian support will suffice. We sincerely hope that the efforts of Special Envoy De Mistura will establish a basis for a sustainable political process in the near future. Turning to African issues, while we continue to tackle conflicts on a country-specific basis, it is also important that the Council take a strategic look from a regional perspective and think of ways to strengthen collaboration with regional organizations. In that regard, the open debate on the relationship between the United Nations and the African Union (AU) (see S/PV.7343) served as a valuable opportunity to identify challenges facing peace efforts in Africa and to outline a joint approach to addressing them. Those discussions reminded us that the strategic partnership between the two bodies, especially in the areas of capacity-building and financing, is instrumental in finding appropriate solutions to African crises. As stated in the African Union’s fiftieth anniversary declaration, we hope that the Security Council and the AU will continue to work towards achieving the goal of a conflict-free Africa by the year 2020. In the same vein, the high-level open debate on terrorism and cross-border crime also highlighted the interconnected nature of terrorism and transnational crime in the Sahel region, Libya, Syria and Iraq. It also demonstrated the great need for such issues to be addressed holistically. The adoption of resolution 2195 (2014) played an important role in bringing the Council’s attention to the issue of an increasingly dangerous and troubling nexus between terrorism and transnational organized crime. Before concluding, although we have a few important meetings ahead, I would like to take the opportunity to thank all members of the Council as the Republic of Korea’s term in the Security Council draws to an end this month. Serving on the Security Council these past two years has been a great privilege and a rewarding experience. During the past two years the Council has collectively made considerable progress towards building peace and stability in many parts of the world. But we have also been bogged down by some of the most pressing crises of our time. My delegation is honoured and also humbled to have been a part of that unified effort to bring more peace to the world. I would also like to express sincere appreciation to all of the Council members for their close collaboration and friendship during the past two years. I am also grateful to the Secretariat staff for their kind assistance and support. My special thanks go to the support staff, including the translators, interpreters and security personnel. Although we will no longer be on the Council, the Republic of Korea will continue to work closely with the members of the Council to safeguard peace and security across the globe. We are confident that the Council’s ongoing efforts will bring our world closer to peace. I wish all members the best in their future endeavours.

As 2014 draws to a close and the Chadian presidency of the Security Council reaches the end of its term, I would like to congratulate you, Sir, and your entire team for the excellent role you have played in guiding our work. Since this is the last wrap-up session in which we are taking part as a non-permanent member of the Council, I hope you will allow me to look back over the Council’s activities not only during the month of December, but also for the period of 2013-2014. A number of issues that were part of this month’s agenda have also concerned us over the past two years. That is the case with Syria, the Sudan, South Sudan, Darfur, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, the Middle East peace process and Libya, but also with regard to a number of matters to which Chad quite rightly drew particular attention, such as counter- terrorism and cooperation between the United Nations and regional organizations. Throughout Luxembourg’s first term on the Security Council, we have tried not to lose sight of the fact that behind every agenda item, and behind every statistic in the Secretary-General’s reports, there are human beings and individual destinies that are directly affected by the results of our action or inaction. Holding a seat on the Security Council is a very special and grave responsibility. That awareness has guided our actions throughout our term, especially with respect to the question of Syria. Regrettably, the Syrian situation, which continues to deteriorate, represents the most egregious failure of the international community with respect to the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations. The determination of the Syrian regime to repress all opposition, the subsequent rise of terrorism and the persistent differences among the great Powers have prevented a political solution to the crisis up to this point, plunging the Syrian population into an endless calvary. In such difficult conditions, we did everything possible to ensure the right of the affected populations to humanitarian assistance. The joint work undertaken, first with our Australian friends and then with our Jordanian friends, with a view to improving the situation of civilians and access to humanitarian aid was reflected in the presidential statement of 2 October 2013 (S/PRST/2013/15), and subsequently in resolutions 2139 (2014), 2165 (2014) and 2191 (2014). The mechanism for delivering humanitarian aid across borders and conflict lines established by resolution 2165 (2014) and extended for a year by resolution 2191 (2014) has proven effective. We hope that scaled up efforts on the part of the international community will allow more people in need to be reached. At the same time, we take this opportunity to renew our call on all parties to the conflict, in particular the Syrian authorities, to fulfil their responsibility to protect their population and to end their violations of international humanitarian law and their abuses of human rights. We call on them in particular to end the violations and abuses committed against millions of children by implementing the recommendations on Syria adopted on 26 November by the Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict. But we should have no illusions — absent a political solution to the Syrian conflict, there can be no end in sight to the tragedy that has befallen the Syrian people. We hope that the coming year will prove decisive in that regard and that the efforts undertaken by Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura will allow the contours of a solution to the crisis to emerge. Over the course of the past two years, the Council has taken important decisions, and it can be said that its action has prevented the worst. By way of example, I will mention the establishment of an Intervention Brigade within United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the creation of new United Nations stabilization missions, first in Mali and later in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where there was reason to fear a new genocide, which was an unacceptable risk just as we were commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda. We were correct to act, but in all those cases, sustained and vigilant support from the international community has been essential. The same holds true for Somalia. Our work in the Security Council has been in keeping with the convictions and priorities that Luxembourg has long upheld in the United Nations. Our approach to addressing crisis situations, inspired by former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, has been a holistic one that views the links among security, development and human rights as the best way to establish lasting peace and maintain peace in post- conflict settings. In that context, we have insisted on the protection of civilians, respect for human rights and international humanitarian law, the question of women, peace and security as well as the fight against impunity, highlighting the fundamental role of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The fact that the Council was prevented from referring the Syrian situation to the Prosecutor of the ICC will surely remain a black stain for all those who, like us, saw such a referral as part of a preventive logic that could have dissuaded the parties to the Syrian conflict, including terrorist groups such as Daesh, from committing further war crimes and crimes against humanity. We have made every effort to use the full array of tools available to us to promote the protection of children — first, of course, within the context of our term as Chair of the Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict, but also by ensuring that the language concerning the protection of children affected by conflict was inserted into all decisions and positions adopted by the Council. If our statements on the subject struck some as repetitious, it is because children are unfortunately the first victims of contemporary conflicts. That is why we stress the importance of ensuring that the protection of children is taken into account across the spectrum of the Council’s work and why we insist on the implementation of the Council’s resolutions and presidential statements on the issue, most recently resolution 2143 (2014), adopted on 7 March. Faced with growing threats to international peace and security, it is essential to strengthen the effectiveness of the Security Council. Along with others, we promoted innovations in the Council’s working methods to that end. Our time on the Council has also strengthened our support for the French initiative for a code of conduct under which the five permanent members of the Security Council would voluntarily and collectively commit not to resort to the veto in cases of mass atrocities. We have come to recognize the degree to which the use of the veto or even the threat of its use weighs upon the Council’s work. The illegal annexation of the Crimea and the violations of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine cast a sharp light on the limitations of the Security Council under its current structure, despite the provisions of Article 27, paragraph 3, of the Charter of the United Nations. The example of Ukraine is unfortunately only one of many that prove that additional efforts are required to more fully take into account the importance of conflict prevention in the work of the Security Council. Preventing conflicts will certainly contribute to restoring the credibility of the Security Council. In that regard, we place high hopes on the Secretary-General’s Rights Up Front initiative. We hope that more frequent use of briefings by the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Envoys of the Secretary-General for the prevention of genocide and the responsibility to protect will enable the Council to more accurately anticipate the outbreak of crises and therefore to take appropriate conflict prevention measures more quickly. It is also in that spirit that we welcome the open information meeting that the Council will hold this afternoon on the situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Over the past two years, Luxembourg has committed its resources and resolve to the service of international peace and international security. We end our term of office with a sense of mission accomplished, but also with a feeling of humility, more than ever aware of the limits of the Council’s actions and of the fact that we have assumed that responsibility over a two- year period on behalf of all the States members of the General Assembly. We are coming to the end of our term office with a feeling of great gratitude with regard to colleagues, permanent and non-permanent members, with whom we have closely cooperated during this period of very intense work. We will now continue to work outside the Security Council. We hope that the good practices established in terms of transparency of the Council’s work, particularly these monthly wrap-up meetings, will be continued in the future, and that we will benefit in our turn from the transparency that has characterized our work with regard to the entire membership over the past two years In conclusion, I would just like to wish the newly elected members — Angola, Malaysia, New Zealand, Spain and Venezuela — success and satisfaction in carrying out their mandates. Finally, we would like to extend our best wishes to Ambassador Barros Melet and the entire Chilean team during their presidency of the Security Council in January 2015.

Mr. President, I wish to convey my delegation’s appreciation to you and your team for an efficient and productive presidency of the Council during this month. We are approaching the end of 2014, arguably the most intensive year the Council has ever had. I wish we could conclude this year with a sense of accomplishment, but that is not the case. The year 2015 will inherit the largest number of refugees and displaced people ever, significant gaps in accountability and ending impunity, a mutating and expanding threat of terrorism, and an even more diverse geography of conflicts that demand our urgent attention. Six months ago at the Asia Society, the Secretary- General pleaded with the international community not to abandon the people of Syria and the region to waves of cruelty and devastation, and offered a six-point plan ahead. Barely on one point — the destruction of chemical weapons — progress has been achieved. The people of Syria continue to suffer displacement, torture, enforced disappearances, sieges, starvation and barrel bombs at the hands of the tyrannical Al-Assad’s regime and murderous terrorist groups. Humanitarian access continues to be denied, convoys delayed and vital medicines confiscated, while doctors and humanitarian workers remain under constant attack. Resolution 2139 (2013) has been ignored or violated on almost all points. Protected by a series of vetoes, those who are causing such extraordinary destruction and devastation continue to enjoy impunity. We welcome the renewal last week for one year of the provisions of resolution 2165 (2014), and thank the penholders, Australia, Jordan and Luxembourg, for their passionate and patient work throughout the year in the face of that unprecedented humanitarian crisis. We hope that the efforts of United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura will lead to life-saving solutions. We stress, however, that local freezes should not become just another surrender-or-starve instrument in the hands of the Al-Assad regime, or anyone else for that matter. The year 2014 has reminded us all how easily hopes can be overturned and tenuous stories of success can give way to more destruction and bloodshed. Thus, in spite of the most competent and inclusive Government in its history, Yemen is again at a dangerous crossroad where peaceful transition and vital reforms can be overtaken by more violence, growing sectarianism and fragmentation of the State. A continued united and firm stance and action on the part of the Council, in cooperation with Yemen’s neighbours, the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, is paramount to preventing such a negative outcome. If necessary, the Council should be ready to expand the use of sanctions regime, including new listings. For a year now, the Council has been seized of the situation in the youngest of United Nations Member States, South Sudan, where personal ambitions and complete disregard for the needs of the young nation on the part of the country’s leaders have crippled the country and caused another major humanitarian crisis. The continuous calls of the Council and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development to stop fighting have been ignored. In the absence of tangible progress, the Council should not shy away from taking action against those impeding the peace process, including sanctions and a full arms embargo, as a means of protecting civilians in a situation where their own leaders are unable and unwilling to protect. The transformation of the African-led International Support Mission for the Central African Republic into the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic , supported by the ongoing efforts of Operation Sangaris and the European Union, have brought renewed hopes for an end to violence in the Central African Republic. The much-too-easy access to illicit arms, the control by the opposing militant groups of the extraction and sale of diamonds and gold, the weakness of State institutions and a pervasive sense of impunity remain an explosive mix, however, that could erupt in renewed violence any time. It is essential, therefore, that we do not lower the Council’s guard by indulging in a premature sense of a mission accomplished. It is also essential that the sanctions regime, including the arms embargo, be fully implemented by all, including by the Central African Republic’s neighbours. Since the most recent Council meeting on this issue (see S/PV.7311), the situation in eastern Ukraine and Crimea has not improved. Russian arms and ammunition, as well as mercenary fighters, have continued to cross into Ukrainian territory under various guises, prolonging the conflict, which has already displaced over 1 million people. In spite of the ceasefire, barely a day has passed without casualties on the Ukrainian side. Russia continues to block an expansion of the Organizations for Security and Cooperation border monitoring mission. The signals that Russia intends to deploy offensive nuclear systems in Crimea, in contravention of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapon, are profoundly disturbing. We reiterate our position that the Minsk agreements must be implemented in full and by all parties. A durable solution to that conflict can be based only on full respect for the independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of Ukraine. The issue should remain on the Council agenda with regular updates, including on the human rights situation. We welcome a decision of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to continue reporting on the human rights situation in Ukraine in 2015, because in the occupied Crimea the indigenous Tatar population continues to suffer persecution, while the separatist- held areas of eastern Ukraine remain black holes of impunity and lawlessness, with extrajudicial and summary killings, torture, intimidation, ill-treatment, extortion, abductions for ransom and forced labour as the trademarks of pro-Russian militants. Lithuania is also deeply concerned by Russia’s continued efforts to undermine Georgia’s sovereignty and independence. The so-called treaty on alliance and strategic partnership signed recently between Russia and the region of Abkhazia undermines all efforts to find a solution to the conflict based on the principle of Georgia’s territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders, and constitutes a step towards the annexation of Abkhazia by Russia. There are very real fears that a similar scenario will be played out in the Tskhinvali region of South Ossetia. Let me now briefly move on to a few thematic issues. In its resolution 2117 (2013), the Council linked the illicit trade and misuse of small arms and light weapons with negative consequences on human rights, humanitarian efforts and development, and in particular the protection of civilian populations. Next year the Secretary-General is to submit a report on small arms and light weapons. This, combined with the entry into force of the Arms Trade Treaty, offers an important opportunity to improve the protection of civilians, as well as those who are there to help them on the ground — humanitarian workers, medical staff and peacekeepers. The open debate on terrorism and cross-border crime initiated by Chad (see S/PV.7351) reminded us all of the importance of breaking the nefarious links between criminality and terrorism and disrupting terrorism financing, which relies on an increasing variety of sources. The urgency of working out effective counter-narratives to expose the terrorists for what they are — nothing else but despicable rapists, murderers and executioners of sleeping children, helpless elderly, women and girls — cannot be stressed enough. In fact, the need for a breakthrough in the ever more sophisticated battle for the hearts and minds of potential terrorism recruits has never been more urgent. Finally, with regard to the sanctions regimes, which are more numerous than at any time before in the Council’s history, we remain of a view that the Australian draft resolution was a missed opportunity to improve the application of that important tool at the Council’s disposal to sharpen the impact on the perpetrators, while at the same time improving necessary assistance and capacity building to the affected States. We appreciate Australia’s efforts in that direction. I would like to conclude by joining my colleagues in welcoming the incoming non-permanent members of the Security Council, and conveying our deepest appreciation to the outgoing teams of Australia, Korea, Rwanda, Argentina and Luxembourg for their dedicated work and collegiality during this incredibly busy year. They will be missed. And I wish all the best to Chile for its forthcoming presidency in January.

The Security Council has had a very intense month. We adopted eight resolutions, including ones on combating terrorism and cross-border criminal organizations, and issued four presidential statements on the Central African region and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), among other items. China greatly appreciates Chad’s proactive and effective work at the helm of the Council, and its successful leadership of our work. With regard to the Council’s work this month, I would like to focus on three issues. The first is the situation in the Middle East. China is deeply concerned about the continuing tension between Palestine and Israel and the recurring bloodshed that has resulted in many innocent civilian casualties. We urge Palestine and Israel to exercise restraint and take steps to ease tensions, rebuild mutual trust and restart the peace talks. China has been closely following the peace process in the Middle East, and has pushed for peace and negotiations. We firmly support using the good offices of the international community and the due role of the Council. We welcome the draft resolution proposed by Jordan on the question of Palestine and Israel and hope the Council will act as soon as possible to respond to the legitimate concerns of the Arab countries. Secondly, on the question of Africa, the Council has discussed items on Libya, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the situation in Central Africa and the LRA. At the initiative of Chad, as President of the Council, the Council held an open meeting (see S/PV.7343) and adopted presidential statement S/PRST/2014/27 on cooperation between the United Nations and the African Union (AU), in which the Council expressed its wish to establish more effective relations with the Peace and Security Council of the AU and called on the international community to increase its efforts to improve peace and security in Africa. China has always been a constructive participant in that area, and is ready to work with the international community to promote enhanced cooperation with the African Union in peacekeeping and help Africa achieve its goal of a conflict-free continent by 2020. Thirdly, regarding the issue of counter-terrorism, the recent numerous terrorist attacks have taken a heavy toll. Terrorism now takes place in broader geographical areas, and the means that terrorists resort to are increasingly cruel. That presents a serious threat to international peace and security. The international community must adhere to uniform criteria in dealing with this and abide by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, respecting countries’ sovereignty, while the United Nations and the Security Council must play the leading role. We must take steps to cut off terrorist financing and channels for recruiting members and obtaining equipment. We should recognize the importance of the links between terrorist and criminal organizations, and prevent and combat terrorist organizations that use the Internet and information and communications technology in order to engage in terrorist activities, with a view to maintaining international and regional peace and stability. In conclusion, I would like to wish Chile the very best when it assumes the presidency of the Council in January. Sir Mark Lyall Grant (United Kingdom): I would like to congratulate you, Mr. President, and the Chadian mission, on steering the Council through a busy and compressed month. The two open debates (see S/PV.7343 and S/PV.7351) and the Sahel briefing (see S/PV. 7335) brought the African perspective into sharper focus. Holding this wrap-up in public provides an opportunity for reviewing the year and looking ahead to 2015. Looking back, there have been a number of issues on which the Council has shown clarity of purpose and taken decisive action, but there have also been topics on which it has been divided and therefore unable to respond effectively. Our work on counter-terrorism, and in particular in response to the abhorrent threat of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, is an example of an issue on which the Council has had a shared analysis. Resolutions adopted this year have sought to address terrorist financing through kidnaps for ransom and oil sales. We have also tackled the issue of foreign terrorist fighters and, just last Friday, the link between terrorism and transnational organized crime. The Council’s many press statements in response to terrorist outrages, most recently following the sickening attack in Peshawar, Pakistan, are quickly agreed on. Council members share the same determination to combat all forms of terrorism, considering it one of the most serious threats to international peace and security. Another area where we have made progress is on the issue of Syrian chemical weapons and responding to the humanitarian crisis in Syria. Both have required sustained pressure and attention on the part of the Council in order to ensure follow-up action, and we will need to maintain that focus following the adoption of resolution 2191 (2014). There has also been progress on peacekeeping. In the Central African Republic, the transition from an African Union mission to the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic was considerably smoother than the equivalent transition last year in Mali. More generally, we have held a number of debates and retreats on peacekeeping this year that have revealed the shared analysis that peacekeeping needs a close re-examination. The use of new technology, the size, configuration and capabilities of missions, the ever more complex operational environments, the speed of deployment, exit strategies and effective planning — all these are challenges that United Nations peacekeeping will have to address in order to develop a model of peacekeeping for the twenty-first century. The Secretary-General’s peace operations review is looking at all those issues and more. I look forward to the Council’s consideration of the review next year, and hope that we can maintain a shared analysis as we do it. On the debit side of the ledger, the Council has still not been able to make progress on the political aspects of the Syrian conflict. We all agree that the only sustainable solution is a political one, built on the Geneva communiqué (resolution 2118 (2013), annex II), but so far we have failed to take the sort of action that creates conditions conducive to that end. Meanwhile, President Al-Assad continues to wage an indiscriminate and brutal war on his own people. Despite the international outcry at Russia’s illegal intervention in Ukraine, the situation remains unresolved. Everybody has lost as a result, and States with big neighbours will be the warier for it. Nor have Russian actions been limited to Ukraine. The signature of an agreement between Russia and the Georgian region of Abkhazia on 24 November reminds us that what we have seen over the past year is part of a pattern by Russia of systematic interference in its neighbours’ domestic affairs and undermining of their sovereignty and territorial integrity. The world has to respond when countries so blatantly disregard respect for international borders and norms, and the Council should be the guardian of those norms when it comes to maintaining international peace and security, as set out in the Charter of the United Nations. To conclude, I would like to add a third category, in which the Council shares the same analysis of an issue but the action it takes does not have the desired effect. That has been true in Darfur and South Sudan, and so far, at least, in Libya and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The reasons are different in each case, but we will need to address each of them in the early part of 2015. As this is almost the last meeting in the Chamber of your presidency and of 2014, Mr. President, I would like to take the opportunity to note and thank the five outgoing members — Argentina, Australia, Luxembourg, the Republic of Korea and Rwanda — for their extraordinary and valuable contributions over the past two years. There is not time to enumerate all the achievements. Suffice it to say that while it is sometimes alleged that the permanent members dominate all Security Council business, these members have all shown that that is far from the case. Let me also welcome our five new colleagues, joining us on 1 January. We look forward to working with all of them. I wish the Chilean presidency the best of luck in the month of January.

This month, the Council’s agenda has been unusually dense. We are grateful to you personally, Mr. President, and to the entire Chadian delegation for skilfully and effectively discharging your presidential functions. As per custom, Council members have been addressing the issues of the Middle East and North Africa. In the context of the situation in Yemen, the pressing task of the international community remains working with the Yemeni political forces in the interests of reaching mutually acceptable solutions on the path to reform and transformation, founded on the international basis of the transitional period and abstaining from the use of force. We believe that the remaining outstanding issues on the Syrian chemical dossier, which are technical in their nature, will be successfully and swiftly resolved with the participation of the competent experts of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. That matter has long ceased being of an emergency nature and has nothing to do with the Security Council’s mandate. A genuine, as opposed to an imaginary concern, is the possibility of terrorists and militants gaining access to chemical weapons. There is growing proof that they have been using these chemicals. The main hurdle to the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the war-ravaged Syrian population is the growing spread of terrorist groups, above all the Islamic State and the Al-Nusra Front, and the expansion of the territory under their control, and as a result, the absence of humanitarian access to many territories. Russia supported the adoption of resolution 2191 (2014), extending the mandate of the United Nations humanitarian mechanism to Syria’s external borders. We call on United Nations humanitarian structures to cooperate fully with Damascus, including through timely notification of the size and nature of the humanitarian cargoes concerned. The main thing is not to forget that the key to success and work on the humanitarian track lies in talks between the Syrian parties on achieving a political settlement to the crisis. A growing concern is the situation on the Palestinian-Israeli track. We are ready to work in the interests of relaunching negotiations, both at the bilateral level and in the context of the Middle East Quartet of mediators. The draft resolution submitted by Jordan could be a launch pad for resuming Palestinian- Israeli talks. We are ready to support the draft. We believe that the Quartet needs to be mobilized, not in its old format but with the involvement of the League of Arab States as a fully fledged member, since it is the Arab Peace Initiative that opens the way towards a sustainable long-term settlement. In December, the Security Council’s attention shifted to the issue of Africa. While the overall positions of Council members converge or overlap on the situations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic and the Central African region as a whole, the same cannot be said of a number of other issues. These include the continuing serious differences on the Sudan cluster, including issues of settlement of the armed conflict in South Sudan, the state of inter-Sudanese relations, the problem of Abyei, the normalization of the situation in Darfur and the southern states of the Sudan, and the prospects for the consideration of the Darfur dossier in the International Criminal Court. There is still no consensus on the genesis of the current grave crisis in Libya, which sowed the seeds for many of the problems in Mali and the Sahara-Sahel zone overall. With the Council so overloaded with current problems in Africa and beyond, we find it anachronistic for the Council to discuss and adopt a biannual presidential statement on the Lord’s Resistance Army, which has largely been marginalized and poses no clear or present threat. We welcome the adoption of counter-terrorist resolution 2195 (2014), the first to focus the attention of the international community on the need to comprehensively combat the financing of terrorism through various forms of organized crime and illegal drug trafficking. We have long pointed to the problem of the nexus of terrorism and organized crime in various parts of the world, from the Sahel to Afghanistan. We look forward to the Secretary-General’s report on the efforts of various United Nations offices in response to that threat on the basis of information from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the Counter- Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate, the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Group, and other United Nations specialized agencies. In relation to Ukraine, I call once again for the full implementation of the Minsk agreement. As to the signing of a strategic partnership agreement with Abkhazia, that treaty is part of the framework of numerous other bilateral agreements that we have signed with these two independent States. Therefore, that issue should not be considered within the Security Council. The United States delegation’s initiative, supported by a number of delegations, on holding a yearly outcome meeting of the Security Council to review the actions of the past 12 months seems a good idea. In conclusion, we should also like to express our thanks for the constructive work in the Council for the past two years of the delegations of Argentina, Australia, Luxembourg, the Republic of Korea and Rwanda. We welcome the delegations of Angola, Malaysia, New Zealand, Spain and Venezuela, which I am sure will fit seamlessly into our ranks. We also wish every success to the Chilean delegation, which will preside over the Council in January.

At the outset, allow me to thank you, Sir, for your initiative to convene this wrap-up session, the tenth this year and the fifteenth public format of its kind. We hope that this practice will continue in the future and become an institutionalized practice of the Security Council, with a view towards ensuring greater transparency to the entire United Nations membership. With your permission, Mr. President, since this is the final wrap-up session in which Argentina will participate as a non-permanent member of the Security Council, I should like to briefly review how we believe the entire Council should work in terms of dealing with its agenda. Since Argentina assumed a non-permanent seat in January 2013, we believe that we can draw useful lessons for the future treatment of issues. As we prepare to leave the Security Council, we are committed to recognizing that we face a world with more conflicts and with the exacerbation of pre-existing conflicts. We leave a world with greater violence, more violations of human rights, and more people in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, especially women and children. In a world that is more violent than that of January 2013, we believe that one element to note is that on more than one occasion, when we have taken decisions, we have been aware of the tension between two valid principles. On the one hand, we need to take decisions on the understanding that sovereignty cannot be interpreted in the twenty-first century as totally inviolable; that is to say, it cannot be absolutely limitless. The United Nations has sought to see sovereignty in terms of strict respect, and not as though it extended beyond all other norms of international law, human rights and international humanitarian law. On the other hand, the issue of human rights; there would seem to be a conflict between sovereignty and the protection and defence of human rights. I say “conflict” because, with regard to the protection of peace, our thinking has often been in terms of prioitizing one or another of these two principles when the challenge is to find harmony between them, while respecting the Charter of the United Nations and international law. Of course there are gaps. That is why we endeavour to work better together as we move towards the future. The gaps appear not only to the broader membership but to the entire world as the unfulfilled promises of an Organization that has established principles and standards but failed to realize their reflection in practice — in a reality that at times seems entirely yet to be built. In March 2013, the fall of the Bozizé Government in the Central African Republic, as a result of what were doubtless long-standing causes, led to a conflict claiming more than 5,000 lives and displacing approximately one-quarter of the national population, primarily women and children. A year-and-a-half on from South Sudan’s emergence as an independent country in December 2013, the blatant power struggle between President Kiir and his ex-Vice-President Machar plunged the country into a civil war that has already claimed more than 10,000 lives, displaced more than 1 million persons within the country and more than 400,000 into neighbouring countries, and put more than half of the population, primarily women and children, at risk of famine. The conflict in Syria has deteriorated sharply in these years. Today Syria is a divided country where terrorists thrive and where conservative estimates put the death toll at approximately 200,000. Some 9 million Syrians have been forced to leave their homes since the conflict broke out in March 2011. The Syrian people have been the victims of chemical weapon attacks. I, like my colleagues, will never forget when, on 21 August 2013, we encountered a situation violating the vow of “never again” — a situation in which an attacker dared to use chemical weapons, in violation of international law. Today the conflict has spilled over into neighbouring countries, including, in particular, Iraq, where the self-proclaimed Islamic State terrorist group controls almost half of the national territory, committing crimes reminiscent of those committed by the Taliban in Afghanistan during its reign of terror. Libya is another country divided between Islamist forces and others allied to the Libyan Parliament and the General Haftar, a division that can be traced back to the fall of Al-Qadhafi in 2011 as a result of the NATO- led operation. The security situation in Yemen, which was considered the success story of the Arab Spring, is deteriorating, making the collapse of the State along sectarian and tribal lines more likely and providing a haven for Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. The prospect of an independent Palestinian State, living in peace alongside Israel, seems ever more elusive following the 50 days of extreme violence last summer — the deadliest in recent years — and given the inaction of the Security Council. In Europe itself, the situation in Ukraine — where the indirect consequences of the conflict included the downing of a plane carrying 298 innocent people of 15 nationalities — has exacerbated tensions and differences among the big Powers, which have manifest themselves in the dynamics of the Security Council itself, on matters beyond the situation in Ukraine specifically, such as the situations in the Sudan, South Sudan, Afghanistan and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and cross- cutting topics such as sanctions imposed by the Security Council, the protection of civilians in armed conflict, and the upholding and application of international human rights and international humanitarian law. Blaming the Security Council or the United Nations in general for failing to prevent or solve these and other conflicts would be unfair and naive. The Security Council is by its institutional nature a forum for political consultation among 15 countries, including the major Powers, with different views and interests, which, by one form of legitimacy or another, the international community has entrusted with the maintenance of international peace and security, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. But this should not lead us to forget that the United Nations and the Security Council were created so as to replace jus ad bellum with jus contra bellum, and, in this regard, the achievements of the Security Council over the past two years have been at best mixed. I would like to make some brief observations regarding the Council’s handling of these situations and others that it addressed in 2013 and 2014. A first lesson learned is that the Council’s work falls short when it comes to prevention — preventing situations likely to endanger international peace and security. It seems clear that the Security Council did not foresee, never mind prevent, the outbreak of the crises in the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Iraq and Ukraine, or prevent their escalation or help de-escalate them, while it must be recognized that the Council did closely monitor these crises from a relatively early stage. A second lesson learned is that the Security Council seems to remain tied to a logic belonging to the twentieth century rather than the twenty-first, which sees it motivated more by geopolitical and security considerations than by the concept of an ethical institution to which we all ascribe as Members of the United Nations that freely undertake to respect the Charter. Even in situations of mass, widespread violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law, there is disagreement on matters on which there can be no difference of opinion! It suffices to compare the attention the Council devoted to the situations in Syria, South Sudan and the Central African Republic, on the one hand, and to the situation in Ukraine, on the other, in any month since these conflicts broke out. I am not suggesting that the crisis in Ukraine is not serious, even very serious; I am simply observing that, beyond the troubling reports of violations of minority rights, by no measure are we faced there with the sort of humanitarian tragedy we are seeing in Syria, the Central African Republic or South Sudan. The third lesson learned is that the Security Council seems to work in fits and starts, generally compelled by a reflex mechanism, in the spirit of a volunteer firefighter or medical emergency rather than preventative medicine. When a conflict breaks out, the first reaction is to meet immediately in order to get more information, send messages to the world, or simply exchange views to determine how we can tackle a given situation and prevent its deterioration. However, as time goes by, it seems that we are becoming used to some horrors of the sort to which we should never become used. And so what in the past would be deemed a tragedy that the Security Council should never allow is now becoming business as usual, and not only because some new conflict has arisen that demands our attention meaning we can no longer devote the same time and dedication to the others as we did in the past. The fourth lesson learned, which is perhaps the most worrisome for my country, is the difficulty we have observed over the past two years in translating principles into concrete achievements, as if certain ends justified the means. The aim of eradicating the scourge of international terrorism is one to which Argentina is fully committed. But the pursuit of that objective, even though it contributes to the realization of other goals deemed important by the Security Council, has served to justify decisions to deprive, in large or small part, persons included on Sanctions Committees’ lists of their due process rights. The objective of ending impunity for crimes against humanity, as in the case of Syria, has served to justify actions that undermine the Rome Statute through referrals made in inappropriate terms that are likely to affect the validity, credibility and effectiveness of the International Criminal Court. The objective of ensuring the protection of the human rights of innocent people and of depriving the parties of the means to continue hostilities has served to justify the imposition of unilateral sanctions at odds with the principles of sovereignty and non-intervention in the internal affairs of States. The objective of neutralizing armed groups that attack innocent civilians has served to justify departing, without an extensive consultation with the expanded membership at a minimum, from the principles that have for decades informed peacekeeping operations, such as the consent of the parties, impartiality and the non-use of force except in self-defence or in defence of the peacekeepers’ mandate, as has been the case with the Force Invention Brigade of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The urgency of addressing acute situations or emerging crisis situations with limited human and financial resources has served to justify accelerating the drawdown of forces in other situations where peace is not fully consolidated and where we face the risk that there will be a return to conflict. The violence unleashed in the context of the recent political crisis in Haiti makes us fear that we are facing one of those situations there. Argentina warned of that trend during the negotiations on and in the context of the adoption of latest renewal of the mandate of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (resolution 2180 (2014)). The need to deal with problems that alarm us all and that are even increasing in their severity has served to justify the Security Council’s encroaching on the competency of other organs of the United Nations, notably the General Assembly, as has been the case with climate change and in some ways, more recently, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Finally and paradoxically, the goals of exporting democracy and universalizing the enjoyment of human rights have served to justify the sending of weapons to the parties in conflict to achieve peace. I will only reaffirm that, for Argentina and for many Member States, normalizing arbitrariness, the phasing out of legal rights, and unprincipled pragmatism are not valid options. Not just any means justifies the end sought after. In one of my early days in the Council, I said that I not only had the honour of being the representative of Argentina but that, as a matter of personal conviction, I define myself as a feminist. Equality really is a good objective to achieve between men and women. I recalled that Alva Myrdal said in 1982, when she won the Nobel Peace Prize, that women are not so ambitious as to believe that we will find eternal peace in the world or solve all disputes between nations. The economic and political conflicts that we are witnessing are very deep. We do not lay claim to an angelic state of perfect harmony. Ours is a more modest goal: women believe that we can do more in concrete terms. People often speak of increasing devastation, which is why I believe that we must change the mindset in order to transform the way we act. When we face conflict, we keep repeating a false idea. We respond with militarization, weaponization and violence — those things do not lead to victory. How could it be possible that such a path could lead to victory when it is so costly, when such a victory, if it even existed, would be built on the destruction of another, who, with luck, has been destroyed right down to their dignity? I therefore believe that not only the Council, but our entire Organization — and all of our time — has to be dedicated to seeking and thinking otherwise in order to act differently. I wish every success to Angola, Spain, Malaysia, New Zealand and Venezuela, who will join the Security Council as members. I would advise them not to think small or be daunted. The challenges are enormous, as are the obstacles, but also, as a colleague said, the five permanent members are not our enemies, not even our adversaries. We are 15 countries working together, agreeing sometimes and having differences at other times, but working together, even though we may make mistakes, as I mentioned. We can make many mistakes, and we will continue to do so. But where we cannot go wrong is with respect to the principles that we have committed to uphold. As to the current permanent and non-permanent members, those that are remaining and those that are departing, it has been an honour for Argentina to learn and work with them, each and every one of them, where we have agreed and where we have differed, in the conviction that beyond our individual visions we have worked more or less successfully with great effort and honesty. We thank the Secretariat, in the person of Mr. Movses Abelian and the staff who assisted the Argentine delegation in its two presidencies of the Council and in leading the Committee established pursuant to resolution 1591 (2005) concerning the Sudan and the Informal Working Group on Documentation and Other Procedural Questions, for their support and advice. Former Secretary-General Hammarskjöld challenged us when he said that the United Nations was at a landmark moment in its time, for its future. The members have to choose between two concepts of the United Nations — as a static machine for having meetings or as a dynamic instrument through which nations can organize a dignified, peaceful, just, egalitarian and free global community.

I thank the delegation of Chad for organizing this wrap-up session, which provides us with an opportunity to assess the work of the Security Council in the month of December. The open debate on peace operations (S/PV.7343) presented the Council with an opportunity to examine the evolution of the strategic partnership between the United Nations and the African Union (AU). It also underscored the growing significance of the collaboration between the two organizations. The basis for that partnership is the mutual recognition that other international organizations besides the United Nations can and indeed do make a positive contribution to the maintenance of international peace and security. Our examination of the impediments to greater coordination between the AU and the United Nations provide a basis for building future responses. It is imperative, therefore, that the relevant authorities consider this an opportunity to draw lessons and assess the prospects for strengthening the strategic partnership between the United Nations and the AU. The open debate on terrorism and cross-border crime (see S/PV.7351) highlighted the intersection between those two threats to international peace and security. The fact that cross-border crimes generate substantial revenues that are being used to finance terrorism in the subregion and beyond demands that we strengthen our efforts to combat money-laundering and the financing of terrorism. Concerted national, regional and international action to address this challenge is therefore vital. We commend the delegation for its leadership role in the adoption of the first-ever Security Council resolution on terrorism and cross-border crime (resolution 2195 (2014). Nigeria was pleased to co-sponsor the resolution, and it is our hope that it will boost the fact against cross-border crime and terrorism. The briefing on the Sahel (see S/PV.7335) revealed that, in terms of the three pillars of the integrated strategy for the region — security, governance and resilience — considerable challenges remain. In the area of security, terrorist groups like Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and the Boko Haram remain active and continue to pose a threat to the peace and security of the region and beyond. The transnational nature of terrorist threats make it essential for countries to cooperate. It is in that regard that the Republic of Benin and the States members of the Lake Chad Basin Commission have decided to establish a multinational joint task force to defeat and uproot Boko Haram. We will continue to count on the support of our bilateral and multilateral partners in that important endeavour. We would like to conclude by thanking Chad for the astute manner in which it has presided over the Council this month. We extend our best wishes and full support to Chile as it prepares to assume the presidency of the Council in January. We bid farewell to Argentina, Australia, Luxembourg, the Republic of Korea and Rwanda, and commend them for their significant contributions to the work of the Council over the past two years. It has been a pleasure working with them. We look forward to welcoming Angola, Malaysia, New Zealand, Spain and Venezuela to the Council in January, and we assure them of our full support and cooperation.

Allow me at the outset to express our deepest gratitude and appreciation to you, Sir, and your team, for the excellent manner in which you have managed the work of the Security Council throughout this month. We commend the initiative of Chad to organize the open debate on the theme “Threats to international peace and security: terrorism and cross-border crime” (see S/PV.7351). Jordan is fully aware of the magnitude of the challenges and danger posed to the world by terrorism, and reaffirms the importance of promoting international and regional cooperation in developing effective mechanisms to counter terrorism, cross- border crime, and the ramifications of the nexus between those two phenomena. We also express our appreciation for the leading role played by Chad in the adoption of resolution 2195 (2014) on this subject. The open debate on cooperation between the United Nations and regional and subregional organizations, peace operations and the United Nations-African Union partnership and its evolution (see S/PV.7343) provided an opportunity to reaffirm the importance of integrating the efforts of the Organization and the African Union in promoting the partnership between them and of cooperation and coordination between the United Nations Security Council and the African Union Peace and Security Council in matters affecting the peace and stability of Africa. Last week, on behalf of the Group of Arab States, Jordan submitted a draft text calling for a peaceful, just, permanent and comprehensive Middle East settlement that would end the Israeli occupation of Arab lands and ensure the establishment of two independent States, Israel and a sovereign and contiguous Palestinian State. In that regard. Jordan looks forward to working with Member States towards achieving a consensus agreement on the draft resolution. In conclusion, I take this opportunity to congratulate the incoming Chilean presidency and to wish it every success in managing the Council’s work next month. I also express my delegation’s gratitude to the delegations of Argentina, Australia, Luxembourg, the Republic of Korea and Rwanda for their efforts and cooperation on all matters addressed this year. We look forward to working with the five new members next month.

I thank you, Sir, for convening this ninth wrap-up session of the year, which represents an increase of 50 per cent compared to the six wrap-up sessions organized by Council members last year. I thank Pakistan for introducing these stock- taking meetings in January 2013, and we hope that the current format of public briefings introduced by Rwanda in its presidency of July this year will encourage more United Nations Member States to participate in these important meetings, dedicated to assessing the activities of the Council, including its progress, challenges and effectiveness. Rwanda congratulates you, Sir, on your demonstrated talent in presiding over the Council this month. We extend our congratulations to Mr. Moussa Faki Mahamat, Minister for Foreign Affairs and African Integration of Chad, who chaired meetings on the two main topics you proposed to mark your presidency — namely, the United Nations-African Union partnership in peace operations, and terrorism and cross-border crime, both sanctioned by a presidential statement and a resolution, respectively. Our appreciation also goes to Bante Mangaral, Deputy Permanent Representative; Gombo Tchouli, Political Coordinator; Madeleine Alingue, Alternate Political Coordinator; and the whole Security Council team of Chad, which has done a tremendous job during Chad’s first-ever presidency of the Security Council. I take this opportunity to congratulate Ambassador Cristian Barros Melet of Chile on his assumption in a few days of the presidency of the Security Council for the month of January 2015. Rwanda pledges its full support to Chile, and will contribute as much as we can to the activities of the Council in January and in the months and years to come. As this wrap-up session is our last as a non-permanent member of the Security Council in the current term, allow me to make a general assessment of Rwanda’s contribution to the work of the Council for the term 2013-2014. During the campaign for this prestigious seat in 2012, we issued a booklet entitled Rwanda Values Peace, which we sent to all United Nations Member States and in which we made seven specific commitments. The first commitment, on page 7, was to contribute meaningfully to the prevention of conflict and the consolidation of peace and stability in Africa and globally. In that regard, it will be recalled that in 2013 Rwanda was Chair of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Conflict Prevention and Resolution in Africa, and in that capacity organized several thematic debates on achieving that goal. Furthermore, in April 2013, during our first presidency, we convened a high-level briefing on the prevention of conflict in Africa by addressing its root causes (see S/PV.6946), at which presidential statement S/PRST/2013/4 was adopted. Nonetheless, much more work by the Council is necessary in the area of conflict prevention. We believe that the Security Council must move beyond discussing the issue as the topic of a thematic debate and consider it as an actual threat to international peace and security. The second commitment was to enhancing partnership between the African Union (AU), other regional and subregional organizations and the United Nations in the maintenance of international peace and security. As Chair of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Conflict Prevention and Resolution in Africa, that was our priority. Rwanda played a leading role in preparing the seventh annual consultative meeting between the United Nations Security Council and the African Union Peace and Security Council held in October 2013 in Addis Ababa, and in the drafting of its joint communiqué. Moreover, resolution 2167 (2014) on regional partnerships in peacekeeping, introduced by Rwanda during its second presidency in July, was another instrument to enhance United Nations-AU cooperation. It is our hope that the Security Council will pursue efforts and strengthen cooperation with regional and subregional organizations, including by providing the necessary support, including predictable funding, to AU-led peace operations. The third commitment was to improving the working methods of the Security Council to ensure a more inclusive, transparent and effective Council. That is what we have tried to achieve during our term, pending the necessary expansion of the Council in both categories. We introduced an open format of the wrap- up session in July, advocated for co-penholdership in favour of African members of the Security Council, contributed to more focused, interactive and results- oriented consultations within the Council, and supported the French proposal on a code of conduct for the permanent members to refrain from using the veto in cases of mass atrocities. The fourth commitment was to working towards a more responsive Security Council, including through implementation of the responsibility to protect (R2P) doctrine. As co-Chair of the Group of Friends of the Responsibility to Protect since its creation 10 years ago, Rwanda has consistently advocated for R2P in the Council. In April, we introduced a draft resolution, sponsored by all 15 members, which was adopted as resolution 2150 (2014) on the prevention of genocide, adopted on the occasion of the twentieth commemoration of the genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda. The resolution reaffirmed paragraphs 138 and 139 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome (resolution 60/1), on the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleaning and crimes against humanity, and underscored the importance of taking into account lessons learned from the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda, during which Hutus and others who opposed genocide were also killed. The fifth commitment was to ending sexual violence and impunity. Although that commitment was a little bit ambitious, Rwanda was consistent in pleading for a global commitment to ending sexual violence in conflict, especially that perpetrated on a daily basis by the genocidal movement named Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda, in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. In an open debate chaired by Ms. Mushikiwabo, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Cooperation of Rwanda, on 17 April 2013, as President of the Security Council, she called upon all Council members, “to move beyond expressions of outrage and, instead, to make concrete and measurable progress towards a world where the bodies of women are no longer considered a battlefield” (S/PV.6948, p. 29). In addition, Rwanda has demonstrated its attachment to the fight against impunity in all its statements and contributions to the Council’s decisions, including the vote on 22 May (see S/PV.7180) on draft resolution S/2014/348 related to Syria, and the letter of 5 September, which we co-signed, requesting that the situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea be placed on the Council’s agenda. The sixth commitment was to advancing the role of women in conflict resolution and peacebuilding. In that respect Rwanda, which has made tremendous progress since the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis, shared its 20 years of experience in various open debates on women and peace and security and in the briefing on post-conflict peacebuilding organized by the Council presidency in March under Ambassador Sylvie Lucas of Luxembourg (see S/PV.7143). I take this opportunity to commend the most assiduous Minister for Foreign Affairs represented in the Council, Mr. Jean Asselborn of Luxembourg, who has attended almost every high-level meeting of the Council, and pay tribute to Ambassador Lucas and her team for the efficient, persistent and persevering manner with which Luxembourg pleaded for the well-being of children in armed conflict. Lastly, Rwanda’s seventh commitment was to ensuring sustainable transitions from peacekeeping to nation-building in countries emerging from conflict. We believe that this is the ultimate objective of peacekeeping missions and the raison d’être of the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC). During both of our presidencies, in April 2013 and July 2014, we organized briefings on post-conflict peacebuilding, followed by interactive dialogues with the countries on the PBC’s agenda and PBC country-configuration chairs. It is worth noting that since June 2013, Rwanda has also been coordinating an expert-level group gathering together members of the Council, and a PBC organizational committee aimed at enhancing the advisory function of the PBC to the Security Council and ensuring a smooth transition from peacekeeping to nation-building. Let me conclude by wishing all the best to the five incoming members of the Council: Angola, Malaysia, New Zealand, Spain and Venezuela. I congratulate the outgoing members Argentina, Australia, Luxembourg and the Republic of Korea. I also thank all of those that have supported Rwanda during its two-year term in the Security Council. We thank the African Union for endorsing Rwanda’s candidacy in January 2012, the United Nations States Members for electing Rwanda in October of the same year, the 19 Council members who have served on the Council with Rwanda in 2013 and 2014 for their invaluable support, and the Security Council Affairs Division, headed by Director Movses Abelian, for its assistance to our delegation from day one. Particular thanks go to the Permanent Mission of the United Kingdom to the United Nations, to the United Kingdom Centre for Political and Diplomatic Studies, and to Sir Emyr Jones Parry for the comprehensive two- day training provided in February 2013 in the Security Council to our newly appointed staff.

We thank and commend you, Mr. President, and your team for guiding the work of the Security Council in December. We welcome the convening of this open wrap-up meeting, which we believe to be a vital tool of the Council that must be maintained in future. I shall begin by referring to the sanctions committees and reiterating what we have pointed out on previous occasions concerning the need to reduce the gap between the work carried out in New York and situations on the ground. In that regard, on 5 December an informal meeting of the Committee established pursuant to resolution 1572 (2004) concerning Côte d’Ivoire was held, allowing exchanges of opinions on the Chair’s recommendations regarding the visit made to the country in November. Such visits should become a regular practice, as should the recommendations and proposals emerging therefrom to improve cooperation between the Council and the country subject to sanctions. It should be emphasized that sanctions regimes are the exception and represent a means rather than an end in itself. We welcome the joint closed consultations involving countries and the sanctions committees on their behalf, such as those held on 9 December with respect to the Central African Republic. That new format allows us to take up related agenda items and thereby avoid unnecessary duplication and repetition. Considering the insecurity prevailing in the countries of Central Africa, many of which are facing near-term elections, we also welcome the 10 December consultations on the United Nations Regional Office for Central Africa and the Lord’s Resistance Army. Furthermore, with respect to Liberia, the Council has ended the year by addressing that situation in a timely manner through resolutions 2188 (2014) and 2190 (2014), in a specific case in which the Ebola crisis revealed yet again the fragility of the security and health sectors in Liberia. An analysis of the situation in Liberia reveals yet again the importance of better evaluating and analysing the process for the drawdown and withdrawal of operations and missions established by the Council so that development and inclusion indices may be taken into account, thereby providing a more solid foundation for a smooth transition from the United Nations country teams and other development agencies. The same applies to many other situations on the agenda of the Security Council. Chile believes that the role the Security Council assigns to international justice mechanisms is fundamental. We thank the members of the Council for their active participation and cooperation and for the flexibility they have showed in extending the mandates of the judges and prosecutors of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, whose work has contributed to the development of a particular area of international penal law and the fight against impunity. We would also like to highlight the unique perspective that the Chadian presidency has brought to the issue of terrorism in its open debate on the theme “Threats to international peace and security: terrorism and cross-border crime” (see S/PV.7351). The degree of interest in the topic was clear from the participation of authorities from our capitals to attend the meeting. On that occasion, the Council unanimously adopted resolution 2195 (2014) on the link between terrorism and cross-border time, in support of the strategy for addressing that matter undertaken by this organ throughout 2014. With regard to the Middle East, the briefing given by the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator (see S/PV.7342) focused again on the protection of civilians, painting a landscape of death and despair. We welcome the Council’s unanimous adoption of resolution 2191 (2014), extending the mandate of resolution 2165 (2014) for 12 months, The resolution represents relief for millions of Syrians living in remote areas who will now receive humanitarian assistance. Its unanimous adoption is worthy of note because it represents the spirit of constructive work that should prevail in order for the Council to fulfil its responsibilities under the Charter of the United Nations. However, we know all too well that so long as there is no political solution to the conflict, there can be no end to this complex emergency. In that regard, we should not overlook the repeated message of the Secretary-General and other United Nations authorities, and in particular of the Argentine delegation — the flow of arms from abroad into the conflict zone must stop. Regarding the issues on which the Council should conduct attentive follow-up in the future, we note first the situation in the Middle East, including the peace process. We hope that this organ will prove equal to the task of addressing the current challenges and that it will send a united message that addresses the root causes of the conflict and seeks a broad solution that incorporates the political, security and development aspects of the crisis and that implements the two-State solution, with Israel and Palestine living in peace and security within internationally recognized borders. To that end, we must make use of all existing channels, in particular the Quartet. Furthermore, we believe that with the steps it has taken to address the situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Council has assumed the responsibilities assigned to it under the Charter. To conclude, while expressing our gratitude for the wishes for success offered by delegations in advance of our assumption of the presidency next month, we wish to acknowledge the contributions made from their diverse viewpoints of the non-permanent members whose terms in the Security Council are drawing to a close: Argentina, Australia, Luxembourg, the Republic of Korea and Rwanda. It has been an honour for Chile to work with them. We also take this opportunity to wish every success to the delegations of Spain, Venezuela, New Zealand, Malaysia and Angola, which will join the Council in 2015. We look forward to working constructively with all of them.

I thank you, Mr. President, for convening this session and for guiding us so effectively as President this month. We welcome the fact that you have focused the Council’s attention on issues of crucial importance to Africa, including the lethal threat from the alliance of terrorism and transnational crime, and that Chad has received recognition for its commitment to United Nations peacekeeping. Ambassador Perceval has just quoted probably the most revered Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjöld, and I will too. He famously said that the United Nations was not created to take humanity to heaven but to save it from hell. In the past two years of Australia’s term on the Council, heaven has never been within reach, but there were many days when it seemed we were already deep in hell — the massacres and mass rapes in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, the brutal killings of civilians in South Sudan; the horrific attacks committed by both Séléka and anti-balaka forces in the Central African Republic, where we only barely averted disaster and where the killing in Bangui stopped because there was no one left to kill; the awful rising toll of United Nations peacekeepers and humanitarian workers deliberately targeted and killed in situations as diverse as Syria, Mali, Iraq and the Sudan; and the constant drumbeat of horrific terrorist attacks with children so often the victims. A number of situations that had appeared to be on a positive trajectory have deteriorated sharply. In Libya and Yemen, conflict has broken out. Only a year after the Council applauded Sierra Leone’s Foreign Minister in this Chamber for his county’s peacebuilding achievements at the end of the United Nations Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Sierra Leone (see S/PV.7034), the Ebola crisis threatens the gains that that country, Liberia and Guinea have made in the past decade. We have witnessed a deliberate pattern of provocation, destabilization and outright aggression that have led to the annexation of Crimea; conflict in eastern Ukraine, with over 4,500 dead in the past 10 months; and a commercial aircraft shot out of the sky, with 298 killed, including 38 Australians. There are ominous indications of a further threat to the territorial integrity of Georgia. And then there is Syria — a situation already extremely grave two years has grown immeasurably worse two years later. Over 200,000 people have now been killed, 12.3 million require urgent humanitarian assistance, and over half the population has been displaced. The Syrian regime’s deliberate targeting of its citizens through the use of barrel bombs and siege-and- starve tactics continues to violate every civilized norm, despite the Council’s unanimous demand that they stop. We have seen the extremes to which the regime will go: torture on an industrial scale, as evidenced in the Caesar report, and the use of chemical weapons against civilians in Guta and on multiple occasions since. That has spawned the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, with its horrific oppression — an exhibitionist defiance of the most basic norms of human behaviour. As Under-Secretary-General Valerie Amos told the Council on 15 December (see S/PV.7342), we have run out of words to describe this. Worldwide, almost 60 million people are now displace by conflict, either internally or as refugees, which is the highest number since Second World War. One hundred and twenty million people are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance, the vast majority due to conflict. The dimensions of the challenges before the Council are staggering. We face more simultaneous conflicts with a bigger impact on a larger number of people across a wider swathe of the world that at any time since the Second World War. Terrorism is resurgent, and in large areas rampant. It will, of course, always be the case that the Council will be judged by its failures. Our failure to break the geopolitical stalemate on Syria will be a permanent stain, but faced with that catalogue of crisis and conflict, the Council has sought to respond. We have not always succeeded, but the Council had endeavoured to use the tools it has in innovative ways, and sometimes to decisive effect. Peacekeeping is the Council’s primordial tool. The number of peacekeeping missions and the number of personnel deployed are at record levels. The Council has taken some crucial steps to strengthen peacekeeping, and the Secretary-General’s current high-level review should consolidate these. The establishment of the Force Intervention Brigade in the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in March last year took robust peacekeeping for the protection of civilians to a new level. The mandates for the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali and the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic confirm that trend. The decision of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan to shelter 80,000 civilians initially in its bases when violence broke out a year ago demonstrated, we hope, a new mindset. As we commemorated the twentieth anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda a few months later, there seemed to be some sign that the international community now recognized that we had a responsibility to protect that requires us to respond in the face of mass atrocity, and that this might mean something in practice. Later today, we must act to help the people protect the people of North Korea by inscribing a new item on our agenda, “The situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”. That is a situation of a totalitarian State systematically and grossly violating the most basic human rights of its citizens in a way unparalleled in today’s world. In the past two years, the Council has used another key tool, sanctions, as a response to threats to international peace and security. The Council has applied sanctions to two new situations, in the Central African Republic and Yemen, while calibrating existing sanctions regimes to better respond to evolving situations. New listing criteria have been developed with more direct focus on listing perpetrators of crimes against humanity and war crimes. We have also pursued accountability. While the Council has been unable to provide the International Criminal Court the support it deserves and needs, it is paying closer attention to the link between human rights and conflict. Some resist this, but the linkage is as linear as it is unassailable. The just-published report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Serious Crimes Committed in the Central African Republic provides ample demonstration. Australia came on to the Council convinced that elected members could and should contribute across the whole Council agenda, but we also knew that it was important to identify practical issues that required Council attention and on which we could focus in order to try and make a difference. Our initiatives on small arms, which resulted in the adoption of resolution 2117 (2013) in September 2013, and on policing, which resulted in the adoption of resolution 2185 (2014), adopted last month, sought to fill gaps in the most defining Council task — the prevention or control of conflict. Our ambition, shared with Luxembourg and Jordan, to tackle the humanitarian crisis in Syria — the single greatest humanitarian crisis the world faces — reflected the determination of three elected members to find a way through the political gridlock of the permanent five members (P-5). We succeeded certainly because we were determined, but fundamentally also because the P-5 needed us to succeed. There is a lesson for elected members in that. Resolution 2191 (2014), adopted last week, was our third Syrian resolution since February and has renewed the historic mandate of resolution 2165 (2014), on access across borders. As penholder on Afghanistan we have sought to ensure strong Council support for that country’s transition to a democratic future. Resolution 2189 (2014), adopted 10 days ago, is designed to underwrite that through a continuing international presence to assist the Afghan security forces following the conclusion of the International Security Assistance Mission’s combat mission at the end of this month. Our experience as Chair of the Sanction Committees on Al-Qaida, Taliban and Iran confirmed our view that the United Nations system needs to modernize and professionalize its approach to sanctions. We have worked hard to that end in chairing our committees; as a co-sponsor with Sweden, Greece, Germany and Finland; at the high-level review of United Nations sanctions; and in regular Council negotiations. There is a strong and growing demand among affected States and United Nations Members in general — since all are obligated to implement the Council’s sanctions decisions — to engage with relevant committees and to access technical assistance. Australia intended to put forward a draft resolution that would provide the United Nations system with the capacity it needed to respond to that demand. Unfortunately, despite the overwhelming support of the United Nations membership for assistance, a Council consensus has not been achievable, but that of course is not the end of the matter. The conversation has started; Member States will demand more by way of participation and technical assistance from the Council and the Secretariat; and the delivery of the recommendations at the high-level review shortly will be the next important phase in that work, and we will continue to pursue it after the conclusion of our term. As we approach the seventieth anniversary of the Charter of the United Nations next year, it would be nice to think that the fundamental norms it contains are unversally accepted and no longer require protection, but, ominously, that is not the case. Key precepts of the Charter — including respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, the prohibition on the use of force in inter-State relations, and the legal framework for the protection of individuals in conflict and in peacetime — have been dramatically defied in the past year. The Council must continue to be vigilant and work continuously, whatever the obstacles, to ensure that those fundamental norms are protected for all Member States and for the hundreds of millions of individuals who look to the United Nations for protection. To conclude, as Australia finishes its term, I would like to thank the entire membership of the United Nations for giving us the privilege of representing them on the Council for the past two years, and convey our uninhibited support to members of the Council for 2015 as they take over what is an immense responsibility. We also convey our deepest gratitude to all United Nations personnel at Headquarters and in the field who work so hard and often in great danger to fulfil the tasks the Council gives them and to realize the ideals of the Charter. They are truly the custodians of the best of humanity. Finally, I would like to thank all Council members, the Security Council Affairs Division for the remarkable experience of working with them. Whatever the Council’s failures, we have also achieved a great deal together and the whole Australian team is deeply grateful for that.

I shall now make a statement in my national capacity. It is my genuine pleasure to take stock of the Council’s work this month, during which we have held the presidency. As Council members have known from the outset, the December agenda has not only been busy, but also condensed, due to the periodicity of the reports due this month, and also because the end of the year is approaching. We were scheduled to close our work on 22 December, but constraints and unforessen circumstances have forced us to delay our closure to 23 December. During our presidency, we have adopted four presidential statements and eight resolutions, including our own. Two public debates were held, on 16 and 19 December. The first, under the presidency of His Excellency Mr. Moussa Faki Mahamat, Minister for Foreign Affairs and African Integration of the Republic of Chad, addressed cooperation between the United Nations and regional and subregional organizations, with particular stress on the United Nations- African Union partnership, particularly in the field of peacekeeping operations. Presidential statement S/PRST/2014/27 was adopted at that debate. We trust that the report requested of the Secretary-General on the question will allow this strategic partnership to develop further to the benefit of the two organizations. The participation did not meet our expectations. However, some 40 delegations attending stressed the importance and relevance of the theme, and we commend them for that. We also regret the fact that after the expiry of the silence procedure, we returned to the halted negotiations on the presidential statement. We would like to emphasize that the silence rule was thus bent, a bad precedent that unfortunately threatens to set a precedent itself. The second open debate (see S/PV.7351), also presided over by His Excellency Mr. Moussa Faki Mahamat, was devoted to the growing and dangerous intersection between terrorism and cross-border crime. The resolution adopted unanimously at this high- level debate (2195 (2014)) emphasizes strengthening cooperation between States and United Nations capacity and coordination in efforts to combat these two phenomena. In that regard, it is important that Member States be called on to reinforce the mechanisms available to fight those scourges, which requires serious synergy and close cooperation in the actions of all those involved. The huge participation of Member States in this debate was a clear demonstration of the subject’s importance and underlined the serious threat posed by terrorism and transnational criminal networks not just for Africa but for the whole world. Beyond these two high-level debates, another on the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (see S/PV.7347) was also presided over by our Minister for Foreign Affairs in accordance with resolution 2145 (2014), which provides for quarterly reports from the Secretary-General and a briefing by his Special Representative in Afghanistan on the situation in the country. Our Foreign Minister’s participation in three debates has affirmed our firm commitment to the cause of peace and is an achievement that will go down in the participation record books, as the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Australia highlighted. We considered it important to give the Force Commanders of the United Nations the opportunity to participate in consultations, including through video teleconferencing, in order to be able to respond directly to questions. Similarly, we made an exception in order to enable the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to take part in almost all our consultations, thus giving it the opportunity to ensure that a closed debate did not mean that humanitarian and human-rights issues were short-changed. Besides the two aforementioned major debates, during our presidency the Security Council examined other current situations of no less importance. The first week was devoted to the situation in Syria, more particularly the implementation of resolution 2118 (2014), focusing on all the equipment and material linked to chemical weapons, as well as the situations in Darfur (see S/PV.7326) and Kosovo (see S/PV.7327). During the second week, we looked at the situation between the Sudan and South Sudan and held three briefings on the United Nations Multidimensional Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic, Yemen, the United Nations Regional Office for Central Africa, and the Lord’s Resistance Army. We also adopted a resolution on sanctions relating to Liberia (2190 (2014) and devoted two meetings to the Committee established pursuant to resolution 2127 (2013) concerning the Central African Republic (see S/PV.7329) and the Committee established pursuant to resolution 2140 (2014), on Yemen (see S/PV.7336). In the same week we held a debate on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (see S/PV. 7348), as well as three briefings on the United Nations integrated strategy for the Sahel (see S/PV.7335), the International Criminal Court vis-à-vis the Sudan and Darfur (see S/PV.7337), and the subsidiary organs of the Security Council (see S/PV.7331). Two meetings with countries contributing contingents to the United Nations missions in Liberia (see S/PV.7330) and the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) in the Golan Heights (see S/PV.7333) were held with the participation of military attachés. Last week we held three briefings on the Middle East, including the question of Palestine (see S/PV.7339) and the humanitarian situation in Syria (see S/PV. 7342), as well as consultations on UNDOF. During that week, we adopted two resolutions extending the mandates of the judges and prosecutors of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (2193 (2014) and 2194 (2014), both introduced by Chile, as well as others renewing the mandates of UNDOF (2192 (2014)) and the United Nations Mission in Liberia (2190 (2014)), with one member abstaining on the first of these. The Chair of the Committee established pursuant to resolution 1737 (2006) also gave his quarterly report on nuclear non-proliferation in Iran (see S/PV.7350). Regarding sanctions regimes, the Chairs of the 2127 Committee, on the Central African Republic, and of the Committee established pursuant to resolution 1970 (2011) concerning Libya also presented their committees’ reports. The programme of work was strictly observed and carried out and the meetings were held on time. We note that at the request of 10 members of the Council we have added the question of the situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the agenda in a meeting scheduled for this afternoon. During our presidency we concluded the efforts begun by Australia regarding the issue of the Peacebuilding Commission. The mandate that began in 2010 will end on 31 December and had to renewed with new pilot countries for a case study. To that end, together with the President of the General Assembly we signed a joint letter addressed to the Secretary-General. Before concluding my remarks, I should express my heartfelt thanks for members’ valuable contributions to all the debates. My thanks also go to the Secretariat of the Council and the entire staff, without forgetting the interpreters and the security officers who have supported us throughout our presidency. I would also like to pay warm tribute to our colleagues from the delegations of Argentina, Australia, Luxembourg, the Republic of Korea and Rwanda, who are leaving us after completing their two-year term on the Security Council with brio. We will console ourselves with the arrival of five new members, who are Angola, Malaysia, New Zealand, Spain and Venezuela. They can count on our full support. In conclusion, I wish every success to the delegation of Chile, which will preside over the work of the Council in January, and assure them of our unreserved support. And I wish everyone a great holiday and my very best for the new year. There are no more names inscribed on the list.