SIS: Egypt has honorable, effective role at UNSC

CAIRO - 18 Sep 2017: The State Information Service has issued a report on the history of Egypt's membership at the UN Security Council over 12 years, reviewing the performance of the Egyptian diplomacy during 2016 and 2017 in the service of stability, peace and development issues in the Arab region, Africa and the world.

Egypt has launched several initiatives in the service of Arab, Islamic and international issues with the objective of banning all reasons threatening international peace and security.

Egypt won a non-permanent seat at the UN Security Council for the sixth time for 2016-2017 term after getting 179 votes, which forced its diplomacy to exert more efforts to meet the requirements needed from Egypt to assume its responsibilities in the defense of Arab and African issues as well as international peace and security based on the principles of the UN charter.

Despite regional backing, Egypt had to lobby hard to garner support, needing two-thirds of votes from the 193-nation General Assembly to win the seat.

Egypt was elected as a non-permanent Security Council member in 1949-1950, 1961-1962, 1984-1985, and 1996-1997.

The 15-member council includes five permanent members; Russia, the US, China, France and the UK.

During its tenure as a non-permanent member of the UNSC (2016-17) Egypt chaired the council twice, in May 2016 for a month and in August 2017.

The presidency of the Council is held by each of the members in turn for one month, following the English alphabetical order of the Member States names.

Egypt sought to secure the interests and issues of the African and developing countries and highlight many challenges facing international peace and security at the current stage. During its presidency of the UNSC, Egypt has sought to resolve the long-standing crises in Palestine, Somalia, Iraq as well as Lebanon.

During its presidency to UNSC in August 2017, Cairo has also worked on combating terrorism and drying up their funding sources and armament as it was the first time for UNSC to tackle the issue based on initiative launched by Egypt on the necessity of abiding by UNSC resolutions No. 2253 issued in the year 2015 on efforts to ban selling weapons to terrorists or the parties supporting them.