Statement by Ambassador Karen Pierce, UK Permanent Representative to the UN, at the Security Council Briefing on Yemen
Thank you very much indeed Mr President and welcome to the new Yemeni Representative here.
This is a good day for all of Yemen. I want to congratulate, commend Martin and his team for the work that they have done to bring about these developments. But as Martin himself said we should also thank and commend the Swedish Government, the parties themselves, the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, President Hadi, representatives from Kuwait, Emirati and Oman Government. And my Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Mr President, was very pleased to have been able to join his Swedish counterpart in Stockholm for these important developments. But above all I just want to stress how much we owe to Martin and his team and of course to the Secretary-General.
If I may say so Mr President, this is what the UN is for. This Council’s united support has helped, I think, Martin and the UN get to this point.
I will speak briefly today Mr President because I think we all have important work to do now to support Martin. I will come on to what Mark said in a minute. I was very struck by what Martin said about trust between the parties and what he said about international consensus.
For the first time in two years Mr President the people of Yemen have been put first and we commend all the parties for taking that important step. We recognise their leadership. We endorse the agreements that they have reached but Martin’s cautions about it being a humanitarian stopgap are very well taken.
I want to refer now to what Mark said about the humanitarian situation on the ground. That’s a very sobering reminder of the human consequences that are still at stake and of how many starving, sick and desperate people remain in the most vulnerable of situations.
So Mr President we have no time to lose. As Mark said we need to bring about tangible improvements for the people of Yemen and we need to do that as swiftly as we can.
Thank you to the Governments of Sweden and Switzerland for agreeing to hold a pledging conference. Mark set out an update on his five asks and refined them. We support those.
From our side Mr President as the penholder the United Kingdom will resume work on the Security Council resolution with all our colleagues. We plan to endorse the agreements reached, support their implementation and set out urgent next steps. As requested we will of course work want with colleagues to address the monitoring requirements. We welcome the news about General Cammaert. I think that’s an extremely good step forward. We understand the importance of monitoring the compliance and we understand the importance of the UN having a leading role in supporting the ports. And we hope to be able to work expeditiously with colleagues to bring about a Security Council resolution which will give the firmest possible support to what has been achieved so far and provide Martin and the parties with a solid foundation as they move towards the end of January agreement on his framework and we wish him the best of luck with that.
It’s vital Mr President, it’s vital that the parties who have made such good steps so far continue their good faith and take urgent steps to put these agreements into full implementation. I’m sure I speak for all colleagues on the Council to join me in pledging that the Council will do its very best to stay united and to work tirelessly together with partners throughout the UN membership to support what’s been achieved and move it on to the much desperately needed next stage.
Thank you Mr President.
