Press Releases

We welcome the unanimous adoption of the resolution for the renewal of the mandate of UNFICYP by the Security Council, for 12 months. The unanimous decision of the Security Council without any disagreement, is indicative of the support provided by the Security Council to the agreed solution basis. And this is reflected in the resolution.

There are three important points that we need to highlight compared to the previous resolution in July:

The first concerns Varosha, with the Security Council sending a firm warning to prevent new provocations from Turkey in Varosha. The wording used is quite strong and we welcome it.

The second point concerns the negotiation process. The Security Council reinforced the wording regarding the appointment of the Secretary-General 's envoy. The third point I want to make is procedural. It concerns the twelve-month extension, which is a new element. It's an issue we've been discussing with various Security Council members for some time. Our concern was that the Secretary-General’s reporting to the Security Council remains on a six-month basis and it remained indeed. We can see it in the resolution.

Last but not least, I would also like to refer to the issue of missing persons. Unfortunately, the wording used this time is the same as before. We would have liked to see a more powerful wording considering that the issue of missing persons is purely humanitarian. There is a stagnation in the numbers of missing persons located and this is evident in the figures of the Committee on Missing Persons. We would like to see a stronger message from the Security Council to speed up the process for resolving this problem.

(MH)