Press Release

The following Security Council press statement was issued today by Council President José Singer Weisinger (Dominican Republic):

The following statement was issued today by the Spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres:

The Secretary-General supports the decision of the United Kingdom and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Bureau to delay the next Conference of Parties (COP26), which was due to be held in November in Glasgow.  As hundreds of thousands of people fall seriously ill and many die from COVID-19, the need to suppress the virus and safeguard lives is our foremost priority.

On 30 March 2020, the Security Council extended until 30 April 2021 the mandate of the panel of experts assisting the committee overseeing sanctions against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

On 30 March 2020, the Security Council decided unanimously that the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) will maintain its current troop and police ceilings until 31 May 2020.

While Israeli and Palestinian authorities have shown exemplary cooperation in protecting their populations from the COVID-19 pandemic, there are no clear signs indicating a return to sorely needed negotiations towards a two-State solution, the Secretary-General’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process told the Security Council, which met via videoconference on 30 March 2020.

At least 27 United Nations personnel — 23 peacekeepers and 4 civilians — were killed in deliberate attacks in the line of duty in 2019, according to the United Nations Staff Union Standing Committee on the Security and Independence of the International Civil Service.  This brings the death toll to at least 423 United Nations and associated personnel who were killed in deliberate attacks in the last 10 years from improvised explosive devices, rocket and artillery fire, mortar rounds, landmines, grenades, suicide attacks, targeted assassinations and armed ambushes.

The following statement was issued today by the Spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres:

Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed’s remarks at the third plenary on the remaining mandates of the repositioning of the United Nations Development System, in New York today:

The following is UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ message for the forty-fifth anniversary of the entry into force of the Biological Weapons Convention: