Ministry Statements & Speeches:
I thank High Representative Mogherini for her briefing.
Today’s meeting provides another useful opportunity for this Council to engage another significant regional partner, following our meetings last month with the African Union and the Arab League.
New Zealand is a strong supporter of close collaboration between United Nations and regional and sub-regional bodies.
Such bodies are essential partners for this Council in delivering on its mandate to maintain international peace and security.
Indeed, the effectiveness of this Council often rests in large part on its cooperation with regional organisations. It is in all our interest to ensure engagement between the Council and regional bodies is as effective and productive as possible in preventing and resolving conflict.
New Zealand has deep and long standing ties with the European Union, and many of its member states have contributed to our development and our history. Those ties remain of deep importance and continuing relevance to our country.
The EU is an active and indispensable partner for the United Nations on a wide range of security-related challenges, including peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, non-proliferation and combating terrorism.
Naturally, the EU plays a particularly important role in maintaining peace and security within its immediate neighbourhood.
For many years it has played a central role in supporting Bosnia and Herzegovina’s security through its leadership of the EUFOR ALTHEA stabilisation force.
The EU also continues to play an essential role in facilitating dialogue aimed at normalising relations between authorities in Belgrade and Pristina.
Of course, the crisis in neighbouring Ukraine has been of great concern for the EU and its member states as it has been for New Zealand. We acknowledge the EU’s ongoing role in supporting implementation of the Minsk Agreements and the objective of a lasting resolution of the crisis that is fully consistent with Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
As the High Representative has reminded us, in the Middle East prospects for a two-state solution are diminishing. The European Union has a key role to play in ensuring the peace process is revived, as a member of the Middle East Quartet, through its support to the Palestinian Authority and to the United Nations, and through the various contributions of its 28 Member States in encouraging the parties back to the negotiating table.
New Zealand supports any constructive attempt to move the Middle East Peace Process forward. We have advocated for the Council, in particular, to live up to its responsibilities and to take action to get the parties back to the negotiating table.
We look forward to the release of the Quartet’s report and are encouraged by the High Representative’s assurance that it will be made public soon. We also welcome the information that it will contain specific recommendations on rebuilding confidence and on encouraging the parties back to meaningful negotiations.
Given the special relationship between the Quartet and this Council, we look forward to this Council having the opportunity to consider the Quartet’s report and recommendations when released.
We also welcome France’s hosting of a Ministerial meeting in Paris last Friday and hope that this can contribute momentum towards resuming negotiations between the parties.
As others have said, in Syria the peace process is faltering and the humanitarian situation is disastrous and deteriorating. We are in serious danger of letting slip the best chance we have had in five years to end this conflict. We must not let that happen.
The international community, collectively, and it its constituent parts, needs to do all we can to reduce the fighting, increase aid and get the parties back to negotiations on a political transition, and we encourage and welcome the EU’s use of its influence to make it happen. We also acknowledge the significant humanitarian and development assistance that the EU and its member states have provided to mitigate the human cost of the Syrian conflict and address its spill-over effects in the region.
In addition to the more than one million irregular migrants who entered the EU last year, many more continue to make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean. As we are all too well aware, many perish in the attempt. As United Nations has reported, the death toll so far in 2016 is higher than at the same point last year.
New Zealand co-sponsored Resolution 2240 relating to international efforts to intercept vessels off the Libyan coast suspected of migrant smuggling.
We are ready to consider other contributions EU countries could make, in partnership with this Council, to support safety and stability in the Mediterranean as part of comprehensive approach to addressing the challenges of irregular migration.
We also welcome the EU’s continued efforts to support the Government and people of Libya in achieving peace and stability, including through its support to the Libyan security sector and much needed humanitarian, reconstruction and economic assistance.
Finally, I want to acknowledge the very important role played by the EU’s regional partnerships, particularly in Africa.
For example, the EU continues to play a significant role in Somalia through its development assistance under the New Deal compact, its Military Training Mission for Somali soldiers, its counter-piracy mission, and its ongoing funding for stipends for the troops of AMISOM.
The EU also continues to play a vital role in support stability in Mali and the Central African Republic through its Military Training Missions to strengthen the capability of local armed forces.
These are just a few examples of the EU’s investment of effort and resources towards our common goals of maintaining international peace and security and we look forward to further deepening cooperation in this strategic partnership between the United Nations and the European Union in the years ahead.
Thank you.