INP
NEW YORK
Welcoming the new UN Secretary General’s pledge to make 2017 a year for peace, Pakistan urged the 15 member Security Council to resolve outstanding international disputes.
Speaking in an open debate on the Maintenance of International Peace & Security, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the UN Maleeha Lodhi said, “We welcome and endorse the Secretary General’s call to make 2017 a year of peace and assure him of our full support and cooperation to translate this resolve into reality”.
She said that the world was witnessing unprecedented human suffering caused by conflicts and violent upheavals as entire regions were being destabilised and millions of lives destroyed by long drawn out conflicts.
Ambassador Lodhi emphasised that sustainable peace was a challenge and could not be achieved unless the underlying causes of conflicts were addressed. These causes, she said, included poverty; environmental degradation; political and economic injustice; ethnic, tribal and religious tensions; and external interference and intervention. “It also means addressing longstanding political disputes”, she added.
The Pakistani envoy urged the need for political, security and development actors to support each other in striving for sustainable peace. “It is a comprehensive activity requiring holistic, long-term thinking that connects development, peace and security and human rights”, she said.
Ambassador Lodhi said, “All our discussions from the past year have brought forth the understanding that sustaining peace entails a political process.’
