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Statement by Amb. Byrne Nason at the UNSC Briefing on Threats to International Peace and Security

Thank you very much, Madam President.

 

Thanks also to USG Di Carlo for your briefing.

 

Madam President,

 

Today’s discussion is an important opportunity for the Council to address the developing situation at Ukraine’s borders, which has become a matter of profound international concern.

 

Let me underline at the outset that Ireland, along with our EU partners, is a strong and unwavering supporter of Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders.

 

At this moment of rising tension on Ukraine’s frontiers, arising from Russia’s military build-up, Ireland calls for calm, de-escalation and the pursuit of diplomacy.

 

We call also for constructive and determined engagement on all dialogue tracks, including the Normandy format and the OSCE.

 

 

Ireland is fully committed to the core principles enshrined in the UN Charter. These include the sovereign equality and territorial integrity of States. We recall today that these principles were agreed, collectively and freely, by all members of the United Nations.

 

Moreover, European security is built on a series of essential commitments and obligations.  It is the fundamental right of a sovereign and independent State to chart its own path in the world; to choose its own foreign policy and to make arrangements for the security and defence of its territory. The Helsinki Final Act, one of the foundational documents of the OSCE, confirms the obligation of States, and I quote, to ‘respect each other’s sovereign equality … and the right of every State to juridical equality, to territorial integrity and to freedom and political independence.’   Subsequent agreements, including the Charter of Paris and the Charter of European Security agreed in Istanbul in 1999, reaffirm the core principles underpinning collective European security.

 

Madam President,

 

Earlier this month, Ireland marked 100 years of a hard-won independence. Just as we would not accept another state determining our foreign and security policy, Ukraine similarly has the sovereign right to choose its own policies. 

 

In this Council, we are too often faced with the terrible humanitarian consequences of violent conflict, usually where diplomacy and dialogue have failed. Force is never the answer. It is not the answer now. What is needed now above all is a negotiated, diplomatic solution that reinforces our collective security in Europe. We have the institutions and the mechanisms within which to pursue this solution. Let us use them.

 

Absent that, it will be innocent civilians who once again pay the awful price of conflict.  

 

Madam President, that is not a prospect any of us wish to contemplate. 

 

Thank you.

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