CAIRO: The Secretary-General of the League of Arab States Ahmed Aboul Gheit told a high-level UN session that he hopes that the rise of global conflicts will not have a negative impact on the Security Council’s handling of geopolitical crises around the world.
He said that he hoped that “the disastrous confrontational situation currently taking place in the world will not have negative effects on the Security Council’s handling of issues and crises at the level of the world in general and at the level of the Arab region in particular.”
During a session on cooperation between the Arab League and the Security Council, which is being organized by the UAE as the current Arab member of the Security Council and the President of the Council for March, he said that “there are great fears that crises will be forgotten or ignored.”
He added: “The Arab region is still suffering from the consequences of the major shock that it was subjected to in 2011. There are still conflicts raging within countries such as Syria, Libya and Yemen, with all the humanitarian costs, economic depletion, and threat to security in our region.”
Aboul Gheit said that “developments on the international scene have made many in the Arab region look at the suffering of the Palestinian people with a new eye, as this suffering has spanned for more than seventy years, between repression, asylum and violation of rights and freedoms without a real prospect for a solution.”
Furthermore, he said that the situation in Syria had “passed into a state of freezing, with the disruption of the political track sponsored by the UN and a sharp deterioration in the economic and living situation of Syrians throughout the country, whether in areas controlled by the regime, or those controlled by other forces. This situation is not sustainable, because it involves unlimited suffering for millions of Syrians.”
He explained that “there is a real fear of the potential impact of the current international clash and its negative repercussions on the Syrian arena.”
In Libya, he warned that “the specter of division is resurfacing again in light of the continued presence of militias, foreign forces and mercenaries. We all agreed on the necessity of their departure from the country at the Berlin Conferences 1 and 2, with the support of the Security Council.”
Aboul Gheit stressed that “foreign interference in the Libyan crisis contributes to complicating it, hardening the positions of its parties, and prolonging its duration.”
Commenting on the situation in Yemen, the secretary-general said: “The Houthi group still rejects the principle of negotiation and a political settlement of the crisis, and instead resorts to threatening neighbors in Saudi Arabia and the UAE with ballistic missiles.”
He praised UN Security Council Resolution 2624, which was adopted following political pressure from the UAE, and which imposed more sanctions on the Houthis, while classifying them as a terrorist organization.
“The political solution remains the only way to address the war in Yemen, and to ensure the integrity of the country's national territory, and not to be used as a platform by certain regional powers to threaten its neighbors,” he said.
