Comments to the press by New Zealand’s Permanent Representative

Gerard van Bohemen, UN Security Council President

7 July 2015

Good afternoon everybody. As you know the Council just had informal consultations on the Secretary General’s report on the United Nations Office of West Africa.

The Council members expressed strong support for SRSG Chambas particularly his good offices mandate and they commended him for the good work he did ahead of the elections in Nigeria, Benin and Togo.

They encouraged him to continue that work ahead of the elections scheduled in Burkina Faso and Guinea and assured him that the Council members would be following events there very closely.

The Council members also reiterated their strong condemnation of the terrorist attacks by Boko Haram in Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon and expressed their deep concern at the impact of the social and humanitarian situation in the Lake Chad Basin region.

They also took note of the fact that Ebola continues to be a menace in three countries in West Africa. All reiterated the need to be vigilant against any resurgence and give their support to the three countries to achieve zero new cases.

Question: Can you tell us what’s happening with the Srebrenica resolution?
Srebrenica has been rescheduled for tomorrow morning. The postponement was to encourage as much unity as we can achieve on the resolution and I hope we will see that at 10am tomorrow.

Question: You also met with de Mistura to discuss Syria. What can you tell us about that?
He briefed me on the progress of his conversations in the region, with other regional players, of the fact that he’s briefing the Secretary General and of his intention to provide a report to the Secretary General and come to the Council with a full report at the end of the month.

Question: On Burkina Faso, it seems the current Prime Minister was almost arrested by the Presidential Guard, you were saying Council is encouraging him to work on that, does he have a plan to resolve that problem? The Burundi, draft press statement from last week, is that dead?
Burkina Faso, the Special Representative said he’s been engaging closely on events there. I can’t talk about if he has a plan or not but he’s certainly following events very closely there.

On the Burundi press statement, it was decided in the end that we had made a strong statement in the Presidential Statement in the week earlier and there was no need to add any more at that stage.

ENDS

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