NEW YORK, JUNE 8 – Italy addressed today the meeting in the General Assembly – the first since the birth of the United Nations in 1945 – in which two members of the Security Council with veto power had to explain to the full UN membership the reasons why they made use of their prerogative.
The unprecedented meeting was convened on the basis of the new Resolution 262 adopted by the Assembly on 26 April, establishing an automatic and permanent mechanism for discussion by the membership in the event of the exercise of the veto power in the Council (an initiative, it is recalled, stemming from the Russian aggression of Ukraine, which highlighted how the use of the veto by a member – in that case Russia – prevents the Council from fulfilling its peacekeeping mandate).
Today, China and Russia had to explain to the remaining 191 UN Member States why they vetoed a resolution on 26 May, preventing its adoption, which aimed to strengthen sanctions against the North Korean regime. Sanctions were proposed in light of the launch of more than 20 missiles carried out by Pyongyang since the beginning of the year – more than in the last ten years together – in violation of all the resolutions adopted by the Council.
In his speech on behalf of Italy, the Permanent Representative of Italy to the UN, Maurizio Massari, called on “all UN Member States to join Italy in an unequivocal condemnation of North Korea’s behaviour, reaffirming its obligations to abandon programmes for the development of weapons of mass destruction and urging Pyongyang to respect the safeguards of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the IAEA”.
“We are very disappointed – continued the Ambassador – that the Security Council could not, due to the opposition of two of its permanent members, react promptly to the threats posed by the DPRK”. (@OnuItalia)
