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UN Security Council focuses on Africa, children in March

Xinhua, March 4, 2015 Adjust font size:

The "priority" for the UN Security Council in March will be its four-day visit to Africa, followed by the renewal of the UN mission in the strife-torn Democratic Republic of Congo and a meeting on children in armed conflict, the council president for this month told reporters here Tuesday.

"The first council priority for our presidency will be the council mission to Africa next week," said Ambassador Francois Delattre, France's permanent representative to the United Nations who held the rotating council presidency for March.

"Our basic objective for this mission is to reiterate the commitment and ongoing attention we pay to the political transition and peacekeeping in Africa," he said at a press conference here to brief the council work program for this month.

The council will be visiting the Central African Republic, African Union (AU) Headquarters in Addis Ababa and Burundi. The visit runs March 10-13.

"The second priority of our presidency will be the renewal of the UN mission for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), " said Delattre, adding it is the largest UN-led peacekeeping operation.

"It has a clear and significant mission for the United Nations, which is the protection of civilians in a conflict which, as I recall, has already led to more than 5 million deaths," Delattre said.

"Our objective is with the renewal of MONUSCO to rehab the force so as to strengthen its capacities in the area of protection of civilians," he said.

The UN Secretariat has proposed "a draw-down of more than 2,000 troops" from MONUSCO's current 20,000 personnel and the council's intention is to make the peacekeeping operation more mobile, Delattre said.

To aid the council in its work, he said, it would be briefed by Special Representative of the Secretary-General Martin Kobler and the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General to the Great Lakes Region Said Djinnit "on the changes in the situation on the ground and in the region in general" as well as MONUSCO's role.

"The third priority of the French presidency will be the open debate on children in armed conflict .. on March 25 with the participation of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon," Delattre said.

The focus of that session, he hoped, "would be on dialogue and levers of pressure on non-state armed groups, with particular stress on the peace processes in Mali and the CAR as well as armed extremist groups in Nigeria, Syria and Iraq."

"What we seek to accomplish .. is to gather out-of-the-box proposals from all members of the United Nations who wish to participate," with an eye to putting results in an informal paper to be presented to Malaysia, chair of the Security Council working group on children in armed conflict, said the council president.

"This debate will be critical for us," Delattre said, adding the goal is to further mobilize and bring together the international community in this drive and to find new proposals, hopefully innovative ones, so as to move forward.

"These three priorities, of course, are part of a larger picture of activities for the Security Council in March during the French presidency," he said. "Of course, the major crises will continue to garner council attention," chiefly Libya, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen, with the possibility of the "Boko Haram atrocities" in Nigeria and neighboring countries in the region and crises in Sudan also demanding attention.

Federica Mogherini, the new high representative of the European Union (EU), will make her first visit to the council at an open debate on cooperation among regional organizations, Delattre added. Enditem