S/PV.8177 Security Council

In accordance with rule 37 of the Council’s provisional rules of procedure, I invite the representative of the Sudan to participate in this meeting. The Security Council will now begin its consideration of the item on its agenda. Members of the Council have before them document S/2018/95, which contains the text of a draft resolution submitted by the United States of America. I wish to draw the Council’s attention to document S/2017/1125, which contains the text of a letter dated 28 December 2017 from the Panel of Experts on the Sudan established pursuant to resolution 1591 (2005) addressed to the President of the Security Council The Council is ready to proceed to the vote on the draft resolution before it. I shall put the draft resolution to the vote now.

The draft resolution received 15 votes in favour. The draft resolution has been adopted unanimously as resolution 2400 (2018). I now give the floor to the representative of the Sudan.

At the outset, I am happy to express to you my great pleasure, and that of my country, at seeing your sisterly country, Mr. President, presiding over the Security Council for the month of February. I would also like to express to your predecessor, the Permanent Representative of Kazakhstan, as well as to his country, my congratulations for their effective stewardship of the Council last month. Allow me also to express my thanks to the delegation of the United States for its efforts in coordinating the work on resolution 2400 (2018), which was just adopted unanimously by the Security Council, on the annual extension of the provisions of resolution 1591 (2005). We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to all members of the Council for the time they have made for me and the members of my delegation in order to exchange points of view on the content of the paragraphs of the resolution under discussion. We welcome the fact that the Council resolution just adopted has expressed the overall evaluation of the members of the Council regarding the humanitarian, political and security situation in Darfur in a manner that shows the continuous improvement of the situation in there and in all of its five states, including the Jabal Marra area, where life is returning to normal as a result of the joint efforts made by the Government of the Sudan, the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) and humanitarian partners. The Jabal Marra area has witnessed many leaders and elements from the rebellion movement of Abdul Wahid Nour joining the path to peace  — under the leadership of Attayeb Bashar and others. We would like to confirm here that the Government of the Sudan is seriously seeking to enhance peace in Jabal Marra and all of Darfur through dialogue and peaceful negotiations. We welcome all of those from the armed groups joining the peace procession in order to support security, stability and reconstruction of the state. Council resolution 1591 (2005) was adopted 12 years ago. Since then, we saw periods of calm and periods of escalation, until 2011 where the parties to the conflict resolved their differences through a peaceful and negotiated settlement supervised by the United Nations, the African Union, the League of Arab States and peace partners. As indicated in reports issued by UNAMID and reports of the Panel of Experts on the Sudan established pursuant to resolution 1591 (2005), Darfur has witnessed continuous improvement year after year to this day in 2018. As far as I know, there is general recognition among the previous and current membership regarding the continued improvement, which has resulted in a move from a peacekeeping phase to a phase of stability, development and peacebuilding in Darfur. I do not think that anyone would disagree with me today in saying that the Council resolutions must ultimately be in line with the general assessment of its membership and the different United Nations mechanisms that conditions are improving to a point that would allow for the gradual and phased implementation of the UNAMID exit strategy. Therefore, we thought that this resolution should include a review of the sanctions regime imposed on Darfur since 2005 and a provision on gradually — and only gradually  — ending the mandate of the Panel of Experts in a manner that reflects the situation in Darfur and the conclusions reached by the Council on 29 June 2017, in resolution 2363 (2017). Allow me to recall what the former Chair of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1591 (2005), concerning the Sudan, Ambassador Volodymyr Yelchenko, stated in the three-month report he submitted to the Council on 27 July 2017: “As I mentioned in my visit report, I believe that all United Nations efforts in Darfur, be they peacekeeping or sanctions, should ideally be reviewed in parallel in a complementary manner to reflect the current situation on the ground.” That was reconfirmed in his last statement before the Security Council on 9 December 2017, on the occasion of the expiration of his chairmanship of the Sanctions Committee. This is an important, fundamental and basic report, which is the principal benchmark for the Council in reviewing the sanctions that have been imposed since 2005 and have become obsolete. Moreover, in our view, reviewing the sanctions with the purpose of ultimately eliminating them, would deal with the fundamental problem from which the United Nations suffers — the multiplicity of mechanisms that have been established to deal with one single matter in a conflicting and duplicative manner. From our experience in the Sudan, that practice is harmful, and we are fully aware of the repercussions of such mechanisms. The report of the Panel of Experts mentioned that the remaining armed groups are now active outside of Darfur, in Libya and in South Sudan, and that they are funding themselves by acting as mercenaries, trafficking in persons, taking hostages and levying money by force. Those are the means that armed groups use for funding. They have been recognized by the Panel of Experts and must be condemned by the Council. They must be identified as the abominable acts that deserve the condemnation of the society of nations, as violations of international conventions and General Assembly resolutions. I would note here that these armed groups employ practices that threaten peace and security in the region and must be dealt with as a regional threat, like other terrorist movements active in the region. Moreover, these actions transcend national borders, thus transforming an internal conflict into an international one, and must be dealt with as such. The Government of the Sudan is implementing its plans in order to enhance the presence and the authority of the Government in the areas that have been affected by conflict. Through its various bodies, the Government launched a campaign to collect weapons under the supervision of the Vice-President. The campaign was very successful and created an environment that supported the enhancement of stability and security. It owes it success to the efforts and willpower of citizens and the Government, in cooperation with UNAMID. Moreover, the Government is making additional efforts to enhance the police and judicial presence throughout Darfur in order to deal with the effects of the conflict. We hope that these efforts will advance the political process and will ensure success with the participation of all parties to the conflict, in an objective manner and with no preconditions, in order to genuinely seek to join the peace process in Darfur. I would also like to draw the Council’s attention to the need to not allow certain individuals or factions to take hostage the arrival at a final peace. All actors must be subject to international law, which, in turn, must proscribe the use of violence to achieve any political ends. My country’s delegation also hopes that the Council will do its part in punishing those who obstruct the achievement of peace in Darfur and prolong the suffering of our people there. Abdul Wahid Nour, head of the Sudan Liberation Army, to this very day continues in his obstinacy and rejection of all calls for dialogue and negotiation. He is hiding behind the support from some individuals in a manner that goes against peace and stability in my country and worldwide. The Security Council, when imposing international sanctions on a certain situation or country, relies on resolutions that precede the imposition of such sanctions. That is exactly what happened with Darfur. Now the Security Council has decided that the situation that has led to and prompted the adoption of several measures under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations has returned to normal, and therefore decided to implement a phased exit strategy. Therefore, the sanctions regime must not remain separate and divided from what the Security Council decided with regard to the situation in Darfur on 29 June 2017. Moreover, members might know better than I that the Security Council resorts to different measures to deal with situations that are similar to the one in Darfur. In some instances the Council does not establish a sanctions panel at all, and in other situations it uses only one expert. We therefore believe it is logical that the Security Council would now act accordingly and would no longer require the Panel of Experts, based on the fact that the situation in Darfur has returned to normal and to the state it was in before 2003, and based on the Council’s practices that I have just mentioned. We would like to recall what we stated before the Council in January, that the political discrimination that some States are subjected to for strictly political reasons must not be permitted. We hope that the Security Council, with its great past achievements, will fully take that into consideration. In conclusion, the delegation of the Sudan welcomes the Panel of Experts and its report. We affirm our readiness to cooperate with the Panel and to facilitate its work fully. The Government of the Sudan has demonstrated its serious commitment over the past year to full cooperation with the Panel of Experts and to provide an appropriate environment leading to its success and enabling it to collect and monitor information from real sources on the ground, through the Panel’s repeated visits to the Sudan. We hope the Panel of Experts will uphold its mandate and work in a professional, impartial and transparent manner. Furthermore, we hope that the Panel will rely on information from trusted sources and avoid unreliable ones, and that its reports will reflect the reality on the ground in Darfur and support the continuation of the peace process there.