Permanent Representative of Belarus takes part in the UN Security Council debate
22.02.2017On February 21, 2017, at the UN Headquarters in New York the Ukrainian presidency of the UN Security Council organised the Council’s open debate on “Conflicts in Europe”. Permanent Representative of the Republic of Belarus to the UN Andrei Dapkiunas took part in the session.
In his statement (text, video), the Belarusian representative noted that the topic of the discussion should have long ago become an outdated absurdity, but instead conflicts in Europe still represent an ominous reality. Despite the interest of countries to strengthen international dialogue and understanding the Security Council discussions are unfortunately often used to exert public pressure and to launch embarrassing mutual accusations. According to Andrei Dapkiunas, the reason for this is the apparent loss of the acute sense of possibility of yet another global military disaster. Collective responsibility of major powers to prevent a new world confrontation is replaced with the right of the mighty one in the world politics and with the monopoly on truth and righteousness.
The head of the Belarusian Mission to the UN expressed his conviction that against this background the world today, including as represented in the UN, badly needs new broad discussion on the principles of the future co-existence of countries and peoples. Such discussion should certainly touch upon the conflict in Europe, military and security confidence-building measures.
Andrei Dapkiunas reminded that Belarus put forward an idea of a new multilateral process to overcome the international responsibility crisis and the global alienation. There is an urgent need for a frank multilateral dialogue in order to apprehend the new rules of the multi-polar world while ensuring mutual respect for each other’s interests and recognition of diversity and variety of ways of progressive development of the human civilisation. The head of the Belarusian Mission to the UN underlined that Belarus, with its long history of impartial participation in such processes, is ready to continue to fulfill this role: the country as a welcoming place for international communication and Belarusians as dedicated advocates of international dialogue and its unbiased organisers.
