China’s ambassador to the United Nations, Fu Cong, has said there is a need to re-examine the UN Security Council’s decision to terminate the mandate of the longstanding peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, which is due to end later this year........
China’s ambassador to the United Nations, Fu Cong, has said there is a need to re-examine the UN Security Council’s decision to terminate the mandate of the longstanding peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, which is due to end later this year. Speaking to reporters on Friday at the UN headquarters in New York, Ambassador Fu expressed China’s deep concern about the situation in Lebanon as Beijing assumed the council’s rotating presidency for May. He observed that a genuine ceasefire did not exist in Lebanon, describing the current state of conflict as merely a “lesser fire”. “We do believe that we should revisit the decision, actually, to withdraw the UNIFIL,” Fu said, using the acronym for the UN Interim Force in Lebanon. “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...