S/PV.9473 Security Council

The Security Council will now begin its consideration of the item on its agenda. Members of the Council have before them document S/2023/850, which contains the text of a draft resolution submitted by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. 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 2707 (2023). I shall now give the floor to those members of the Council who wish to make statements after the voting.

Let me just thank the Security Council for its show of unity in the adoption of the 12-month technical rollover (resolution 2707 (2023)). The Council’s continued positive engagement on this file is crucial to securing further progress in the fragile peace process. This show of unity sends a clear signal that the Council continues to be fully supportive of an intra-Yemeni process under United Nations auspices. We as a Council stand ready to support the efforts of Special Envoy Grundberg and Yemeni stakeholders in securing a durable peace in Yemen.

The Russian Federation supported the United Kingdom’s resolution extending the sanctions regime with respect to Yemen (resolution 2707 (2023)). In our view, the decision for a technical rollover of the respective restrictions for 12 months is the best way to preserve the necessary momentum to find a peaceful solution to the Yemeni crisis, in the context of unprecedented escalation in the region. At the same time, we cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the fact that the Council’s set of sanctions decisions regarding Yemen increasingly contradicts the development of positive political processes around it, which in the long term hold prospects not just for ending the bloodshed in Yemen itself but also for an overall stabilization of relations between a number of key States in the region. In that regard, we welcome all the results-oriented efforts being made to achieve that goal, both through the United Nations — first and foremost by the Office of the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General, Mr. Hans Grundberg — and States of the region. Against that backdrop, the actions of the United States — especially Washington’s attempts to use the current international sanctions against Yemen to promote narrow aims that are far from achieving peace in that long-suffering country — are particularly cynical. This conclusion is supported by the scandalous manner in which the United States military handled the military goods intercepted in the Gulf of Oman last December, which Washington then transferred to Ukraine for the needs of the Kyiv regime. We have repeatedly explained why those actions by the Americans run counter to the provisions of not only the relevant resolutions of the Security Council on Yemen, including resolution 2216 (2015), but also norms of international law. The setbacks that the Ukrainian armed forces are facing on the front lines are no justification for such steps. If Washington continues those steps, it will have the most serious consequences. Overall, it seems that it is at long-last time for the Security Council to think seriously about updating the legal framework for a Yemeni settlement, otherwise the fruits of this lengthy work might be lost.