Minister Dlamini Zuma to Address UN Security Council

Pretoria - South African Foreign Minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma will, on Wednesday 28 March 2007, address the United Nations Security Council on the relationship between the United Nations Security Council and the African Union's Peace and Security Council in conflict resolution.

Minister Dlamini Zuma will lead these discussions within the context of South Africa's Presidency of the Security Council for the month of March 2007. In this regard South Africa, in its capacity as President of the Security Council, initiated the thematic debate on the relationship between the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and regional organisations, including the African Union's Peace and Security Council, in the maintenance of international peace and security.

The debate is aimed at facilitating an exchange of views, obtaining new perspectives and identifying potential areas in which this partnership between the UN and regional organisations could be further explored, particularly given AU experiences in the field of conflict resolution, peacekeeping and post conflict reconstruction.

The January 2007 Summit of the African Union in Addis Ababa recalled that "the maintenance of international peace and security is the primary responsibility of the United Nations Security Council and called upon the United Nations to examine, within the context of Chapter VIII of the United Nations Charter, the possibility of funding, through assessed contributions, peacekeeping operations undertaken by African Union or under its authority and with the consent of the United Nations".

Minister Dlamini Zuma herself has committed South Africa to working within the UN Security Council to "create synergies between the work of the African Union Peace and Security Council and the UN Security Council with a view to the prevention of outbreaks of violence and conflict in the continent of Africa."

Minister Dlamini Zuma is expected to return to South Africa on Friday 30 March 2007.

Issued by Ronnie Mamoepa on 082 990 4853

Department of Foreign Affairs
Private Bag X152
Pretoria
0001

25 March 2007