S/PV.9335 Security Council

I would like to take this opportunity to recognize, on behalf of the Council, the work accomplished by the presidency of the Security Council for the month of May. I thank Her Excellency Ambassador Pascale Baeriswyl and her team for their robust efforts. Adoption of the agenda

The Security Council will now begin its consideration of the item on its agenda. Members of the Council have before them document S/2023/388, which contains the text of a draft resolution submitted by France and Malta. 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 14 votes in favour, none against and one abstention. The draft resolution has been adopted as resolution 2684 (2023). I now give the floor to the members of the Council who wish to make statements after the vote.

I would like to begin my statement by congratulating the delegation of the United Arab Emirates on beginning their presidency of the Security Council. We would like to thank the delegation of Switzerland for their able leadership of the Council last month. Just as it did last year, the Russian Federation abstained in the voting on the Security Council resolution prepared by France and Malta on the extension of a special inspection regime in the high seas off the coast of Libya to implement the arms embargo (resolution 2684 (2023)). We would like to recall once again that Russia, along with other members of the Security Council, was at the origin of that regime. We were convinced of the importance of the operation of the inspection mechanism to the situation in Libya and hoped that such measures could contribute to reducing illicit arms trafficking on the territory of that North African country. However, the opportunities offered by the special inspection regime have become effectively locked up by one regional organization: the European Union (EU). We are forced to note that the activities of its IRINI naval operation have not brought about practical results in terms of stabilizing the situation on the ground. It is difficult to say that there have been any unequivocally successful interceptions of contraband for the duration of the IRINI period. The few incidents that have been triumphantly announced by the leadership of the operation raise many questions, primarily because of the hasty conclusions drawn about the military nature of the cargo inspected. This year the situation has not improved: the former Jamahiriya is still awash in weapons. Mention should also be made of the selective nature of the IRINI inspections, as a result of which potential violators of the arms embargo have little to fear from this naval presence. Despite the statistics provided, the actions of European seafarers remain largely opaque. It seems that our EU colleagues are motivated by a desire to formally register their presence in the region and to privatize efforts to promote compliance with the Libyan arms embargo in the public arena. In the coming year, we will of course continue to closely monitor IRINI’s work, particularly in terms of its compliance with the law of the sea and relevant Security Council resolutions. Moreover, it therefore logical that it is hardly advisable to leave the practical aspects of maintaining regional security to one player alone. The not-entirely-successful experience of IRINI merely reaffirms the fundamental importance of establishing effective and genuinely multilateral formats in order to arrive at sustainable solutions to the pressing issues of Libya and the Mediterranean region as a whole.