Statement by Chargé d’Affaires a.i. Anna Evstigneeva at UNSC Briefing on Yemen
16 June 2016
Madam President,
We wish to thank the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Yemen, Mr. Hans Grundberg, and the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Mr. Tom Fletcher. We are grateful for their briefings. We welcome the participation of the Permanent Representative of Yemen in our meeting.
At the moment, the military and political situation in Yemen is relatively stable. There have been no reports of large-scale military activity along the contact line, nor have there been any recorded significant movements of armed forces. We do hope that the parties will continue to exercise restraint and prevent the erosion of security.
We were enthusiastic about the agreements on a large-scale prisoner exchange between the Yemeni parties, reached in early May with the facilitation of Special Envoy Grundberg, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Jordan. This decision was a demonstration of the possibility of maintaining a constructive dialogue and the willingness of the Yemenis to find solutions, including on humanitarian matters. We hope that progress along this track will be further advanced.
We see Yemen as a unified, sovereign, and territorially intact state. We firmly believe that the Yemeni people are fully capable of determining their fate and their future. Only an inclusive inter-Yemeni dialogue under the auspices of the UN, with the involvement of the whole plethora of political forces of the country – including the Ansar Allah movement – can lay the groundwork for lasting peace. Neither can we disregard the balance of power that has virtually evolved on the ground. We support Mr. Grundberg’s efforts to establish such a negotiating configuration and are ready to assist in this regard. A robust foundation for advancing this purpose is, in our view, the draft “road map” for a Yemeni settlement, consultations on which have recently resumed among the stakeholders.
However, the Yemeni issue cannot be discussed in isolation from the current regional situation. The latest round of turbulence in the Middle East was triggered by aggressive moves by the US and Israel against Iran, as well as by the hostile actions by West Jerusalem against Lebanon, which continue to this day. Thus, it should come as no surprise that such a situation has elicited a predictable reaction from numerous regional forces sympathetic to Tehran. According to the Secretary-General’s report on this matter, no incidents have been recorded since September 29 of last year.
In this context, we welcome the mutual understandings between Washington and Tehran, which were announced yesterday. We hope that this positive development will mark the end of the current upsurge in violence, and that all parties involved in the conflict, including Israel, will adhere to the course of de-escalation. This, in turn, will positively affect all hot spots in the region, including Yemen. This is a situation that must be harnessed to rekindle the Yemeni settlement process. We stand convinced that it is impossible to resolve all the interrelated conflicts in the Middle East by using force, and that an escalation of military violence is fraught with a broader conflict. Peace can only be established through dialogue and negotiations.
Madam President,
The humanitarian situation in Yemen remains catastrophic. According to the latest data, over 22 million Yemenis are in need of some form of humanitarian assistance. About five million people are severely food insecure. Approximately 40% of medical facilities have ceased operations or are experiencing serious difficulties, with all this happening amid raging measles and cholera epidemics across the country. Another pressing problem in this regard is the underfunding of the UN humanitarian response plan for Yemen.
When it comes to the issue of the detained local staff of UN agencies, humanitarian organizations, and other groups, we believe that this issue should be resolved primarily through the “quiet diplomacy” mechanism. It is important to engage in dialogue with Ansar Allah, steadily creating conditions for a resolution. Increasing public pressure on the Houthi leadership, however, could backfire, prompting them to toughen their line vis-à-vis the detainees.
We note that eventually there will be a need to resume UN humanitarian operations in the northern regions of Yemen. It is precisely the presence of UN personnel that provides a true guarantee for the millions of Yemeni residents to receive assistance. We call on all involved parties on the ground to ensure adequate working conditions for UN personnel and to refrain from creating artificial obstacles.
Our country has traditionally objected to broad interpretations of the provisions of relevant UN Security Council resolutions, including sanctions resolutions. We expect the panel of experts of the UNSC 2140 Committee concerning Yemen to adopt a balanced, impartial, and objective approach when preparing their reports, including specialized ones, which should be based on credible information and contain a high-quality analysis of that information, without going beyond the scope and provisions of the sanctions regime.
Thank you.