S/PV.9360 Security Council

In accordance with rule 37 of the Council’s provisional rules of procedure, I invite the representative of the Democratic Republic of the Congo 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/2023/469, which contains the text of a draft resolution submitted by France. I wish to draw the attention of Council members to document S/2023/431, which contains the text of a letter dated 13 June 2023 from the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, extended pursuant to Security Council resolution 2641 (2022), 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 2688 (2023). I shall now give the floor to those members of the Council who wish to make statements after the voting.

Our vote in favour of the resolution just now adopted unanimously is part of our trend and efforts to improve the security landscape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by tightening the noose around the armed groups and offering the Congolese authorities the full capacity to effectively counter the activities of the heavily armed groups, whose ravages and atrocities are known by all. That is why it is so important to completely lift the obligation to notify, so that the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo can more effectively fulfil their constitutional mandate of protecting the territorial integrity of their country. We therefore welcome the submission of the confidential report presented by the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in application of resolution 2667 (2022), and we take this opportunity, at a time when the country is at a turning point and needs greater international solidarity, to call for a broad consensus to be maintained within the Security Council on the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is essential that the international community continue to focus its efforts and remain mobilized to put an end to the chronic cycles of violence that victimize countless men, women, young people and children in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Russian Federation supported the text submitted by the French delegation, resolution 2688 (2023), on the renewal of the sanctions regime imposed on the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We would like to reiterate our position. When sanctions fail to respond to the actual situation, impede plans of national Governments in the area of state-building and forming effective armed forces, they must be reviewed and adjusted until they are fully lifted. We are pleased that the Security Council took such a decision in December of last year (see S/PV.9226) when it lifted the notification regime on the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We would like to stress again that Russia, on principle, is opposed to implementing sanctions regimes through illegitimate unilateral measures.

I now give the floor to the representative of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

My delegation takes note of resolution 2688 (2023), which the Security Council has just unanimously adopted, and once again thanks the members of the Council for their commitment to my country’s cause. My country welcomes the renewal, until 1 July 2024, of the sanctions regime in force against all non-governmental entities and individuals operating on Congolese territory. My delegation’s wish is that these renewed measures will have a real impact on the ground and serve as a deterrent that is more effective in ultimately breaking the financial and military backbone of the entities, armed groups and other mafia-like individuals operating in the eastern part of my country. With regard to the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, whose mandate has just been extended until 1 August 2024, the Council can be assured of the cooperation of the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the discharge of that mandate so that all the truths, dynamics, entities and true obscure players in the tragedy unfolding in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo can be exposed. My Government hopes that the Experts’ approach will be objective and that they will not be mistaken about the real targets, the priority targets whose annihilation could advance the agenda of peace in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. My country is indeed a major victim; it is the real perpetrators and their networks that need to be dismantled. The Group must not languish in the search for a means to spare the real perpetrators of the tragedy in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Government has submitted the confidential report on the management of stocks of arms and munitions on time. At the Government’s behest, the Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs travelled to New York to demonstrate the Government’s commitment in that regard. I would also like to assure the Council that my country’s justice system, in close partnership with the United Nations Follow-on Mechanism, headed by Prosecutor Robert Petit, is continuing its work and its investigation into the murder of two United Nations experts. Before I conclude, on my own behalf and on behalf of my Government and my President, I would like to express my gratitude to the Security Council and to the Chair of the Sanctions Committee, in particular, for the historic lifting, in December 2022, of the notification clause imposed on the Democratic Republic of Congo.