Dear Representatives of the media, UN correspondents.

I warmly welcome you to this briefing on the Albanian Presidency for the month of June. Thank you for coming today. I would also like to welcome those media representatives who are participating virtually.

It is a privilege and an honor for me to address you in my capacity as President of the Security Council, and as you can easily guess the first ever for my country, Albania, and share with you the highlights of the program of work that was adopted less than an hour ago at the council.

This meeting with you is an important moment for every presidency and it is no strange that after the formal adoption of the Program of Work – this is the first event of importance. Let me tell you that, besides the colleagues that I see almost everyday sometimes even on weekends in the Council, you are among those we meet and greet every weekday at your privileged media corner. Happy to see you again here!

I would like to pay tribute to all of you, individually and collectively, to your work and efforts, to your profession, to this noble task of informing the public opinion about the work of the Security Council. We are, Albania and will remain committed to an efficient and transparent Security Council during this month, and I very much look forward to a healthy and mutually benefitting relationship. And thank you and that is personal, for not writing that sometimes we, representatives of the Member States end up repeating ourselves, which is inevitably part of the complex life of multilateralism, and particularly, the dynamic life of the Security Council which I call “the place where lights never go out”.

June is considered traditionally a busy month. This year is no exception. The Program of Work that we adopted and I hope you have a copy of it, for the month of June is packed.

Albania’s priorities for the month join our overall priorities for our mandate in the Council and they are intimately related to five key areas: international law, strengthening accountability, advancement of Women, Peace and Security agenda, the relations of the UN with regional and subregional organizations and the working methods of the Security Council.

Let me go more into details on some of them.

First, the issue of Accountability

Albanian Presidency kicks off with a high-level Open Debate on “Strengthening Accountability and Justice for Serious Violations of International Law” under the agenda item Maintenance of Peace and Security. The Open Debate will take place tomorrow, and will be presided over by the Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama. The presence at this level shows how important this topic is for Albania and given the list of the speakers that we have seen so far it is equally for all UN Member states.

Upholding international law and protection and promotion of human rights are at the core of Albania’s foreign policy and are at the core of our priorities during our mandate in the Security Council.

For far too long, we have watched mass human rights abuses and the international community is struggling to hold perpetrators of serious crimes to account.

We cannot and must not become familiar with impunity.

There is an urgency to act, now, on behalf and on the name of the countless victims of senseless conflicts and I say so for:

** for the abused women of Kosovo,

** for the grieving mothers of Bosnia,

** for the children of Ukraine,

** for the nameless victims in Tigray,

** for the Azara in Afghanistan,

** for the Yazidis in Iraq,

** for the Rohyngias,

** for the political prisoners in Myanmar and in Sudan,

** for the detainees in Syria

** for all journalists killed in the line of duty;

** for everyone, everywhere, whose rights have been denied, whose future has been buried, whose dreams have been shattered, by abuse.

There is need to do more, better and faster, for all of us, for what we stand for, for what gets us together and united, to uphold the law, to protect the UN Charter and to preserve multilateralism. The very reason we are here.

We must do everything in our power to recommit to our core norms and values and redouble our efforts to enforce compliance and stop transgression. Because if not respected and implemented, international law is only the paper it is printed upon.

All countries, UN member States have a role to play. Albania is doing its part. This is what our first signature event is all about that will happen tomorrow under the leadership of the Albanian PM.

The briefers for this event, which as I said will be presided over by Prime Minister Edi Rama, will be the President of the International Court of Justice Ms. Joan Donoghue, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, and Oxford Professor Dapo Akande, as representative of Civil Society.

Our second item of importance is Women Peace and Security.

In accordance with our priorities and as a signatory of the Statement of Shared Commitments with other Council Members, Albania will champion Women, Peace and Security and make it a key priority during our SC Presidency.

Therefore, our second signature event will be held on 15 June. It will be a high-level Open Debate on WPS, entitled: “Keeping the promises: The role of regional organizations in implementing women, peace and security in the face of political turmoil and seizures of power by force”. The Open Debate will be chaired by our Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Olta Xhaçka.

We will focus on the role of regional and sub-regional organizations in protecting and furthering the implementation of WPS agenda during these turbulent times, emphasizing the role of these organizations, their engagement with women-led civil society, and the need for context-specific and tailor-made approaches.

We have invited briefers from various reginal organizations and we hope to be able to accommodate as many of them as possible. We expect the Secretary General, Guterres, to participate in this meeting.

We intend to communicate under the shared commitments on specific country issues related to WPS to continue to raise awareness on the situation of women worldwide.

Our third item of importance relates to the informal working group on documentation. It is dedicated to what we commonly qualify the working methods. I happen to have the honor to chair the IWG. And we will organize on the 28th of June the Annual Open Debate on Working Methods.

The Security Council has gone through some tough couple of years, including through the extraordinary times of the pandemic. Therefore, we believe that an open and in-depth debate on the council working methods is timely and very much needed.

We look forward to a good exchange on lessons learned on the capacity of the Security Council to adapt to change in discharging its mandate in maintaining international peace and security.

The forth item of primary importance concerns the agenda item “Cooperation of UN with regional and sub-regional organizations”, the Presidency will hold a briefing at an elevated level on cooperation between the UN and European Union. The very turbulent situation in the world, including as result of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, and the huge and increasing humanitarian needs across the world give more incentives to the need for a stronger UN-EU cooperation, especially in political, humanitarian, and human rights aspects. The EU is also involved in the implementation of various Security Council mandates.

And again, profiting from the presence of the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs of Albania, Xhaçka in the town, she will chair this meeting as well and we expect the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, to be present in that meeting.

Now I will move along quickly in other parts of the program. As I mentioned there will be three open debates, two specific debates one on on IRMCT – Residual Mechanisms of ICTR and ICTY 14 June and one on Afghanistan 23 June. It will be a briefing but also consultations as we agreed this morning with the members of the council. All in all we will have 17 briefings and there will be 5 mandate renewals. We start this week on Friday. I hope the council will renew the mandate on Libya (IRINI), UNITAMS, MINUSTMA, UNDOF and DRC Sanctions.

UKRAINE

During this month the Security Council will also meet to discuss Ukraine. The first meeting on Ukraine will take place on 6 June. It will focus on an issue: sexual violence in conflict and trafficking human beings. We intend to keep the issue of Ukraine high on the agenda and possibly meet as often as the events on the ground will require.

SYRIA

We will organize two meetings on Syria, on the humanitarian and on the political aspects. The humanitarian situation on 20 June, and the political situation on 29.

There is no departure from the usual SC Agenda on Syria, but this time the meeting on Chemical Weapons will be organized under the next presidency in July, given that the previous one took place at the end of May. The Council has agreed that this time, this way was the best and most efficient way to continue to be seized of this aspect of the Syrian File.

The Council will also meet to discuss on:

** Yemen, hoping that the truce will be extended and a meaningful political process is initiated;

** We will have a meeting on Libya, hoping that the constitutional framework will be completely agreed and the progress of the first meeting in Cairo will be sustained so we will have a framework to organize the very much needed elections to give a different perspective to Libya.

The Council will also meet on the Middle East Peace Process, Haiti and UNDOF. On the very last day, there is a meeting will take place under non-proliferation regarding JCPOA and we formulate the hope during this month progress will be made and possibly reported at the council on the ongoing discussions.

In line with our commitments, we have tried to strike a balance between open meetings which for us and for you bring transparency but also closed consultations which for us and sometimes for you bring efficiency on the work of the Council.

To promote effective and inclusive decision-making, the Albanian presidency is also committed to bringing civil society voices to the Security Council in a safe and meaningful way. Because we think that giving a voice to those who work on the ground, sometimes confronted by violence and conflict is important and is a value added on what we sometimes need in our discussions. This is a way for the civil society to participate in political processes and their views should be heard by everyone.

In this respect, we have committed to the OHCHR Good Practice Guidelines for UN Security Council Member States to Mitigate Intimidation and Reprisals. In alignment with these Guidelines, we are taking measures to prevent intimidation and reprisals against civil society briefers.

Staying true to our commitments we have been careful in identifying and selecting CSO briefers, most, the majority of them will be women not just because they are women but they are very good representatives with distinguished achievements in their respective fields.

Lastly and I will stop there I promise. In presiding the security council, Albania will abide by the rules and procedures, we will act in the spirit of fairness and transparency, we will push to seek solutions that contribute in the best ways to the fulfillment of the noble commitments of maintaining world peace and security and we will am sure show it by concrete actions in reality.