The UN Security Council has canceled a trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as envoys from five key members planned further talks on a new round of sanctions against Iran, diplomats said on Friday.
The official reason for the cancellation was the ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano that has caused air travel chaos across Europe, a UN spokesman said.
Several diplomats, however, said on condition of anonymity that intensifying talks on a fourth round of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program also played a role.
“The Americans are very keen to get a resolution finished this month,” one diplomat familiar with the negotiations said. “It’s no coincidence that the [six] are meeting again Monday. It was a consideration in the decision to cancel the trip.”
Diplomats from the five permanent Security Council members — the US, Britain, France, China and Russia — and Germany are meeting almost daily as they struggle to agree on what punitive measures could be included in a resolution to put to the 15-nation Security Council.
It was not immediately clear if the Security Council would attempt to reschedule the canceled trip to the DRC.
Security Council members had planned to meet in Kinshasa with Congolese President Joseph Kabila, who has been pressing for a swift withdrawal of UN peacekeepers from the vast central African country with the approach of the 50th anniversary of independence this year and elections next year.
Kabila wants the DRC peacekeeping mission, known as MONUC, to start withdrawing within months and the last blue helmet out next year.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has proposed a slower three-year phased withdrawal.
Council members had hoped to press him in person to allow a more gradual exit of MONUC, which diplomats and UN peacekeeping officials say is vital to maintaining peace in the country’s turbulent east.
Since its establishment in 1999, MONUC has become the world body’s largest force with 22,000 troops and police, and assumed many of the responsibilities of the Congolese state, which was torn apart by a 1998-2003 war that killed millions.
However, local and Rwandan Hutu rebels still roam much of the two Kivu provinces in the east. Ugandan rebels continue to wage a campaign of terror in the remote northeast and a new rebellion has emerged in recent months in Equateur Province.
Meanwhile, all eight Red Cross staff workers kidnapped in eastern DRC last week have been released unharmed, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Friday.
The eight, a Swiss citizen and seven Congolese, had been held by a faction of the Mai Mai militia since they were seized during a mission last Friday to assess the needs of displaced civilians in South Kivu.
“It was an unconditional release as we have wanted all along and we are all very relieved that they are out without any harm to them,” said Inah Kaloga, communications coordinator at the ICRC in the DRC.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS