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Minister Dlamini Zuma to depart for UN Security Council Pretoria
- South African Foreign Minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma will later today Monday
26 March 2007 depart for New York, United States of America, where she will 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 on Wednesday 28 March 2007. 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 26 March 2007
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