Germany held a press conference at the UN on Tuesday, July 5, about the issues it would take up during its month long presidency of the Security Council.
Ambassador Peter Wittig listed as his priority Southern Sudan which will begin its independence on July 9. The German Ambassador outlined that there will be a Security Council meeting most probably on July 13 for a resolution to recommend that Southern Sudan be admitted as a member nation of the United Nations. This resolution would probably go to the General Assembly on July 14 for the General Assembly to act on it.
There are currently 192 member nations of the UN, so if Southern Sudan becomes a new member nation, this will bring UN membership to 193 nations.
Ambassador Wittig said that probably the German Foreign Minister will come to the UN for this occasion, as will other ministers of nations that are members of the Security Council.
He listed Libya as one of the issues that would come up at the Security Council this month. He said, “How can it be otherwise.” On July 11 the Envoy for the Secretary General on Libya is due to report to the Security Council. Then a regular briefing is scheduled for the end of the month on July 28 with the Undersecretary-General of the United Nations for Political Affairs B. Lynn Pascoe.
A question concerning Russia’s complaint about the delivery of arms by France to Libyan rebels was raised by one journalist at the press conference.
Ambassador Wittig’s response was that there would be the briefing on July 11 and that could come up then.
Another journalist, in a followup question, asked if there was to be a meeting of the Libya sanctions committee on the delivery of arms by France to the Libyan rebels.
Ambassador Wittig responded that, “This morning we had a short discussion on the issue of the arms embargo or the arms delivery in Libya. There was no agreement on this issue.”
I wasn’t called on to ask my question during the press briefing, but afterwards I went up to the Ambassador. I asked him, “Given the dissention on the issue of Libya among the members of the Security Council, did it seem there was some way that the Security Council could monitor and have control over what was done in Libya in the name of resolution 1973.”
The Ambassador answered, No, he didn’t see any way.
The African Union had proposed a Presidential Statement on Libya which the Security Council had not adopted in June. No one followed up, however, to ask if the Security Council planned to try to agree on a statement in July.
A question being raised, but which it was not possible to ask at the press conference, is whether the Security Council, on the Libya issue, has accepted that it is subordinate to the actions and decisions of Nato. Resolution 1973 was passed by 10 nations supporting it, and 5 nations abstaining. This pattern seems to continue, with the nations that have objections to what Nato is doing, unable to find a way to offer an effective means to assert Security Council control over what Nato does in Libya.
Last month saw an effort by the African Union to send a delegation to the Security Council to ask it to help bring about a cease fire and political resolution to end the Libya conflict. Will this month see any such effort? There was no sign from the press conference that any such effort would be made.
A number of other issues were raised by the Ambassador and by journalists during the press conference. This is in general common for a press conference held at the UN at the beginning of a new presidency of the Security Council. The crisis represented by Nato bombing Libya, however, is not a usual situation and yet there seems little open discussion among member nations at the UN about what is to be done about this situation.
A video of the press conference is available at the UN website.
http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/2011/07/press-conference-h-e-peter-wittig.html
