US: Sierra Leone, at UN debate, stresses preventive diplomacy for regional peace

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NEW YORK, US, September 23 (Infosplusgabon) - A senior minister from Sierra Leone on Friday stressed the importance of mediation and regional partnerships to preserve peace, urging the international body to reflect on reform measures that will uphold the United Nations’ collective responsibility to maintain peace.

 

Samura Kamara, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, called on the international community to “generate innovative ideas and credible mechanisms that will bring all conflicts to a peaceful end; promote social progress, peace and security, human rights and fundamental freedoms; and secure better standards of life for humanity”.

 

With a nod to the country’s decades-long civil war, Mr. Kamara said that Sierra Leone “learned from experience” that mediation efforts are fruitful only if accompanied by a timely cessation of hostilities, credible cease-fire agreements, and the timely deployment of peacekeeping or observer missions, among others.

 

On his part, the Algerian Foreign Minister, said faced with the same backdrop year after year of unresolved old conflicts and new deadly outbreaks, climate change, impoverishment and under-development, the world has no alternative but to place its hopes in the United Nations.

 

“Who better to assume this role than our Organization which, even it needs to be improved in many respects, still remains more than ever this unique and irreplaceable instrument in the service of nations, Foreign Minister Abdelkader Messahel told the Assembly’s 72nd General Debate, calling for institutional reform.

 

The time has come, he said, for a radical reform starting with the 15-member Security Council, the only UN organ whose decisions have the force of international law, increasing its membership to take account of the vastly different situation existing today from that when the UN was founded seven decades ago.

 

At every session over the past decades, developing countries have sought additional seats, both permanent and elected, to give a greater voice to their continents, especially Africa.

 

Mr. Messahel promised that Algeria would do what it could to help resolve the conflicts in its neighbours – Mali, Libya, Yemen and Syria.

 

While pledging Algeria's continuing fight against terrorism in all its forms, he called on countries to oppose the advance of Islamophobia, both individually and collectively.

 

 

 

FIN/INFOSPLUSGABON/MIN/GABON 2017

 

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