New York (VNA) – Viet Nam is content with concrete progress made in maintaining the positive political and security atmosphere and promoting the peace process in Cote d’Ivoire.
The statement was made by Ambassador Le Luong Minh, Vietnamese representative to the UN Security Council (UNSC) before a meeting in New York on January 15 to vote for Resolution No. 1795, which extended the mandates of the UN Operation in Cote d’ Ivoire (UNOCI) until July 30, 2008, in order to support the West African country’s efforts to organise free and fair elections.
“We share the concerns of the Secretary General about the lack of significant progress towards unification of the defence and security forces and the volatile situation in the western part of the country,” said Ambassador Minh, who was the first Vietnamese representative attending the vote for a UNSC resolution.
The Vietnamese diplomat highlighted the importance of strengthening national reconciliation, socio-economic reconstruction and holding open, free, fair and transparent elections as set out in the Ouagadougou Agreement and its Supplementary Agreements.
The UNSC unanimously adopted the French-sponsored resolution that expressed total support for activities of Choy Young-Jin from the Republic of Korea, UN Envoy to Cote d’Ivoire, as well as for the Ouagadougou Agreement signed in the capital of neighbouring Burkina Faso last March to end five conflicts in the country and the holding of presidential elections by June 2008.
The UNOCI, a UN peacekeeping mission consisting of about 8,000 uniformed soldiers, was set up on February 27, 2004, under the UNSC’s Resolution No. 1528 with the aim of facilitating the implementation by the Ivorian parties of the peace agreement signed by them in January 2003.
Cote d’Ivoire, a former French colony, famous for cacao products, was partitioned into two regions after uprising forces staged a coup d’etat against the Government of President Gbagbo.-Enditem
|
|