China’s UN envoy says UNSC should reconsider removing peacekeepers from Lebanon

 

20m ago

 (03:00 GMT)

China’s UN envoy says UNSC should reconsider removing peacekeepers from Lebanon

As we’ve been reporting, China’s ambassador to the United Nations, Fu Cong, spoke to reporters in New York on Friday, as his country assumed the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council for the month of May.

Fu said that one of the issues China has been considering was the future of the UN’s peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon.

“We do believe that we should revisit the decision, actually, to withdraw the UNIFIL,” Fu said, referring to a resolution passed by the UN Security Council in August last year.

UN peacekeepers have been stationed in southern Lebanon since Israel’s 1978 invasion, but last year, the council’s 15 members voted to bring the mission to a close from the end of 2026.

“I think at least the view of the overwhelming majority of the Security Council is that this is not the time to really, to withdraw the UNIFIL out of that part of the country,” Fu said.

China is waiting for a report from the UN Secretariat expected in June “before we take our position”, he added.

A UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) armoured vehicle drives at the entrance of the southern Lebanese coastal city of Tyre on Thursday [Mahmoud Zayyat/AFP]