Updated 6 April 2020 at 08:47 IST
UNSC almost ready to talk about COVID-19; chief Guterres invited as roadblock China moves
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has stated that the UN Security Council (UNSC) will meet soon in order to discuss the Coronavirus pandemic
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has stated that the UN Security Council (UNSC) will meet soon in order to discuss the Coronavirus pandemic and ways to combat the virus, among other related matters. This comes even as China successfully managed to utilise the time under its rotating presidency of the UNSC and veto power in March to delay the top body taking up the Coronavirus, a situation that is set to change now that the Dominican Republic has taken over the rotating presidency.
Security Council meeting soon
At a press briefing he said, "I've just received an invitation from the Presidency of the Security Council at the request of a number of Member States to brief the Council, which I will do, I believe, next week."
Guterres has appealed for a global ceasefire across the world in the backdrop of the coronavirus and when asked if it was possible for the ceasefire to last beyond the COVID-19 crisis, he said, " A ceasefire is an opportunity for diplomacy for peace. A ceasefire is an opportunity for political negotiations. A ceasefire is an opportunity for next steps to lead to permanent peace. And, so, the ceasefire has a value in itself to avoid people dying and to allow for the disease to be more effectively fought, but the ceasefire must be seen as a first step to permanent peace."
Speaking earlier he said that the UN must be active and should lead the charge in the fight against coronavirus. "The UN must fully assume its responsibilities first doing what we have to do our peacekeeping operations, our humanitarian agencies, our support to the different bodies of the international community, the Security Council, the General Assembly but, at the same time, it’s a moment in which the UN must be able to address the peoples of the world and appeal for a massive mobilisation and for a massive pressure on governments to make sure that we are able to respond to this crisis, not to mitigate it but to suppress it, to suppress the disease and to address the dramatic economic and social impacts of the disease. And we can only do it if we do it together, if we do in a coordinated way, if we do it with intense solidarity and cooperation, and that is the raison d’etre of the United Nations itself."
Published By : Devarshi mankad
Published On: 6 April 2020 at 08:47 IST