UNSC Unanimously Adopts Resolution Targeting ’ISIS’ Finances
Local Editor
The UN Security Council passed a resolution strengthening legal measures against those doing business with terrorist groups. It targets mainly "ISIS" militants.
The resolution is the result of a joint effort by Russia and the US, which are both leading anti-"ISIS" campaigns in Syria.
It stems from a UNSC action taken in February against illegal trafficking of antiquities from Syria, which threatened sanctions on anyone buying oil from "ISIS" or the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front and urged that kidnap ransoms not be paid.
Before the Council meeting on Thursday, Russian UN envoy Vitaly Churkin told reporters that one of the main objectives of the new resolution is to "circle "ISIS" as a separate, most vital terrorist threat."
"Formerly... the Security Council's documents referred to "ISIS" as one of al Qaeda's divisions," he said. "Now the document offers expanded criteria of listing, which makes it possible to impose limitations on any individuals or corporates smudged by relations with "ISIS"."
The key objective of the new resolution, according to Churkin, is the "enforcement of a framework to reveal and disrupt illegal financing of "ISIS" and groups related to it by means of trade in oil, artifacts, and other illegal sources."
"The countries did have respective obligations well before this, but, unfortunately, those obligations have not been observed by everyone and constantly," he said.
Under the revised document, UN monitoring and sanction mechanisms "will be focused clearly on eradication of those developments."
Some of the sanctions the UN could impose include asset freezes, travel bans, and arms embargos.
The resolution also asks countries to report on what they have accomplished in disrupting IS' financing within the next 120 days. It also calls on UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to write up a "strategic-level report" analyzing "ISIS"' sources of revenue within 45 days.
The UNSC resolution comes just days after US Secretary of State John Kerry's Tuesday visit to Moscow. Following talks, Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia and the US have agreed on a number of "critical" issues, particularly with regard to Syria.
"The US stands ready to work with Russia," Kerry told journalists.
"We see Syria fundamentally very similarly, we want the same outcomes, we see the same dangers, we understand the same challenges," Kerry said. "Russia and the United States agree that you can't defeat Daesh without also de-escalating the fight in Syria."
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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