Security Council meeting on Threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts.
After the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) unanimously adopted a counter-terrorism resolution on 20th November to fight the group in Syria and Iraq, France announced the intensification of air raids against Islamic State targets, .
“The draft resolution proposed by France following last week’s deadly attacks in Paris, attracted lengthy discussion”, the British Ambassador to the UN, and Security Council President Matthew Rycroft told.
The draft resolution received 15 votes in favour. The draft has been adopted unanimously as resolution 2249 of 2015.
Francois Delattre, Permanent Representative of France to the United Nations, said that the resolution not only recognised “the exception nature of the Daesh (ISIL) threat” but that it also called upon all member states “to take all necessary measures to eradicate the sanctuary that it has created in Syria and Iraq, but also to push back its radical ideology.”
He also said the resolution was “historic” and announced that France would intensify “air raids against strategic targets of Daesh in Syria.
This scale up is underway. France, in the days to come, will triple its strike force with the arrival in the area of Charles de Gaulle aircraft carriers.”
Russia, who had also circulated a resolution calling on governments, including Syria, to combat terrorism, said it welcomed the “growing understanding that the time has come to bring together the ranks of the international community in the face of terrorism”.
Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told member states “of course, we had to support the French resolution. While the draft was prepared in extraordinary regime and tight time frame the French delegation took on board Russia’s important amendments. We are convinced that the important foundation of combating international terrorism should be the UN Charter, guided here by the matter of the use of force.”
Addressing reporters after the vote, Delattre said with the resolution France now had “the legal and political framework to mobilise and unify the entire international community in the existing threat and fight against Daesh.”
He also stressed that the resolution called on all Member States “to take all necessary measures against Daesh, all necessary measures. These are the key words obviously. It is a strong, very strong formulation which suffers no ambiguity.”
Rycroft said the United Kingdom was working with its allied “as part of the global coalition to degrade and defeat ISIL in Syria and Iraq, and when necessary, striking against those who pose a threat to the United Kingdom and our people and our interests.”
When asked whether the international community needed the approval of the Syrian regime before using military force against ISIL targets, Rycroft said “the consent of the Syrian government is not required for any action that is in self-defence under article 51 of the UN Charter, and that is what Operative Paragraph 5 of this resolution describes and is talking about the UN Charter. That is the legal basis, and as I said, this is a unanimous call to action to all Member States with the capacity to do so to take all necessary measures on that legal basis.”
